Jay Lefkowitz

Jay is a senior litigation partner in the New York City office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP and a member of the Firm’s Global Management Executive Committee. He is also an adjunct professor of Administrative Law at Columbia Law School. Jay has served as lead trial and appellate counsel in a wide variety of substantive areas, including shareholder litigation, antitrust, product liability, and commercial litigation. He has also conducted numerous internal investigations for public companies and audit committees. Jay has had a distinguished career in public service. He served from 2005-2009 as the United States’ Special Envoy on Human Rights in North Korea. He also served in the White House as Deputy Assistant to President George W. Bush for Domestic Policy and General Counsel in the Office of Management and Budget. Earlier in his career, he served as Director of Cabinet Affairs and Deputy Executive Secretary to the Domestic Policy Council for President George H. W. Bush. Jay has also represented parents and organizations seeking meaningful reform in education for the last two decades, litigating school voucher cases in several states and representing charter operators fighting for space in public school facilities. In recent years, Jay successfully led parent trigger case in California, the landmark case fictionalized in the 2012 movie Won’t Back Down. Columbia Law School J.D. 1987 Columbia CollegeA.B., History 1984