Robert D. Sack

Robert David Sack is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. At the time of his appointment by President Bill Clinton in 1998, he was in private law practice as a partner in the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

Judge Sack received his B.A. degree from the University of Rochester in 1960, and his LL.B. degree from Columbia Law School in 1963.

Judge Sack was a law clerk for Judge Arthur Lane of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey from 1963 until 1964. Judge Sack went into the private practice of law in 1964 with the New York firm of Patterson, Belknap & Webb, which later became Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler, initially as an associate and later as a partner. During 1974 he took time from his practice to serve as Associate Special Counsel and Senior Associate Special Counsel for the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry. In 1986, Judge Sack joined the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher as a partner, a position at which he remained until his appointment as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1998.

Judge Sack is the author of Sack on Defamation: Libel, Slander, and Related Problems (3rd edition, 1999), and he is the co-author of Advertising and Commercial Speech: A First Amendment Guide (1999). Most recently, his article, Protection of Opinion Under the First Amendment: Reflection on Alfred Hill, “Defamation and Privacy Under the First Amendment,” was published in the 100th Anniversary issue of the Columbia Law Review.

Judge Sack is a director of the William F. Kerby and Robert S. Potter Fund, which assists in funding the legal defense of journalists abroad. He is a member of the advisory boards of the Bureau of National Affairs’ Media Law Reporter and the American Bar Association Forum Committee’s Communications Lawyer. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of the Columbia Law School, and he was a member of the Board of Trustees of Columbia University Seminars on Media and Society. He was Chair of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. He is also a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School. A member of the American Bar Association, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and the American Judicature Society, he is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

Judge Sack is a native of Brooklyn.