A Dream Come True

Abstract

This chapter assesses Irving Robert Kaufman's departure from the government. It looks at how success in private practice helped burnish his résumé for the bench, noting that he would also need the patronage of political types, who were easier to court outside government. Above all, there was a growing family to provide for after he and Helen had had a son in 1939. The chapter first tracks how Kaufman joined a small firm with a rotating cast of more senior partners. It follows how he achieved his goal of establishing a successful and profitable law practice in very short order. Yet, a lucrative practice wasn't what Kaufman wanted. So even as he toiled at his office in an elegant skyscraper on Wall Street, he worked just as assiduously to lay the groundwork for what he'd coveted since first wandering into Mullett's Monstrosity. The chapter delves into Kaufman's volunteer assignment for the Association of the Bar of the City of New York in 1943. Volunteer work in the public interest was one way for Kaufman to advance his judicial ambitions, but he was also working a more time-honored angle: cultivating powerful patrons.