Richard Buxbaum ’53 practiced law in Rochester, New York, and with the U.S. Army before joining the Berkeley Law faculty in 1961. He publishes in the fields of corporation law and comparative and international economic law, from 1987 to 2003 was editor in chief of the American Journal of Comparative Law. Buxbaum founded and was the first chair of UC Berkeley’s Center for German and European Studies and Center for Western European Studies. From 1993 to 1999, he was dean of international and area studies at UC Berkeley.
Buxbaum was one of the five defense counsel in the criminal proceedings against the 773 members of the Free Speech Movement from 1964 to 1967; represented various campus organizations and individuals in cases arising out of Vietnam War protests; and was defense counsel in a large number of criminal proceedings that accompanied the Third World Strike of 1969-70, which was a factor in the development of affirmative action programs for student admissions on the campus. He was the first director of the Earl Warren Legal Institute at Berkeley, serving from 1969 to 1974. His involvement with the National Housing Law Project goes back to its formation as a Backup Center for the Legal Services Corporation in 1969.
Buxbaum has served on various state and national committees engaged in the drafting and review of corporate and securities legislation. He is contributing editor to a variety of U.S. and foreign professional journals and has been a visiting professor at the Universities of Michigan, Cologne, Frankfurt, Münster and Sydney. He was appointed Honorary Professor of Law of Peking University, holds honorary degrees from the universities of Cologne, Osnabrück, Eötvös Lorand, McGill, Humboldt and the Bucerius School of Law, and in 1992 received the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Award for Humanities and Arts. Buxbaum is a member of the Council on Foreign Affairs, the American Law Institute and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001.
Education
A.B., Cornell University (1950)
LL.B., Cornell University (1952)
LL.M., UC Berkeley School of Law (1953)
Richard M Buxbaum is not teaching any Law courses in Spring 2024.