Robert H. Sitkoff

John L. Gray Professor of Law

Office:	Hauser 200
Assistant:	Molly Overholt 617/495-4635
Phone:	(617) 384-8386
Fax:	(617) 812-6195
Email:	rsitkoff@law.harvard.edu

Biography

An expert in wills, trusts, estates, and fiduciary administration, Robert H. Sitkoff is the John L. Gray Professor of Law at Harvard University. He was the youngest professor with tenure to receive a chair in the history of Harvard Law School. Sitkoff previously taught at New York University School of Law and at Northwestern University School of Law.

Sitkoff’s research focuses is on economic and empirical analysis of the law of trusts and estates. His work has been published in leading scholarly journals such as the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, and the Journal of Law and Economics. Sitkoff is a co-author of Wills, Trusts, and Estates (Aspen 9th ed. 2013), the leading American coursebook on trusts and estates. He is currently working on a series of empirical studies of trust law reforms that will form the core of a book to be published by Yale University Press (co-authored with Max Schanzenbach).

Sitkoff is an active participant in trusts and estates law reform. He serves under Massachusetts gubernatorial appointment on the Uniform Law Commission. He is a liaison member of the Joint Editorial Board for Uniform Trusts and Estates Acts, the principal oversight body for all uniform law activity pertaining to trusts and estates. Sitkoff previously served as the reporter for the Uniform Statutory Trust Entity Act (2009). Within the American Law Institute, Sitkoff is a member of the Council, which is the governing body of the Institute, and he is a member of the Council’s Program Committee. He previously served on the consultative groups for the Restatement (Third) of Trusts and the Restatement (Third) of Property: Wills and Other Donative Transfers.

Sitkoff has served as an advisory consultant and expert witness in litigation and regulatory matters involving trusts, estates, and fiduciary administration. In 2007, he was named an up-and-coming young lawyer by Lawyer’s Weekly USA. Sitkoff’s research has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Financial Times, and other leading media outlets. Sitkoff is the editor of the Wills, Trusts, and Estates abstracting journal in the Social Science Research Network, is a past chair of the Section on Trusts and Estates of the Association of American Law Schools, and is an academic fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel.

Prior to joining the legal academy, Sitkoff was a law clerk to then Chief Judge Richard A. Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. At the University of Chicago Law School, from which he graduated with High Honors, Sitkoff was the Managing Editor of the Law Review, was selected for the Order of the Coif, and was awarded the Olin Prize as the outstanding graduate of his class in law and economics.