Jeffrey Mead Kurzon (born 1976) is a

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

attorney and politician.

Education

Kurzon graduated from

McGill University Faculty of Law The Faculty of Law is one of the professional graduate schools of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the oldest law school in Canada, and continually ranks among the best law schools in the world. The faculty is known for it ...

with a BCL/LLB in 2003, after studying abroad at the

University of Aix-Marseille Aix-Marseille University (AMU; french: Aix-Marseille Université; formally incorporated as ''Université d'Aix-Marseille'') is a public research university located in the Provence region of southern France. It was founded in 1409 when Louis II of ...

in France.

Career

He began his career as a lawyer at

Sidley Austin Sidley Austin LLP is an American multinational law firm with approximately 2,000 lawyers in 20 offices worldwide. The firm's headquarters is at One South Dearborn in Chicago's Loop. The firm specializes in a variety of areas in both litigatio ...

, which he later left to create his own law firm. Kurzon's firm represented law school graduates who sued in a class action their law schools, including

New York Law School New York Law School (NYLS) is a private law school in Tribeca, New York City. NYLS has a full-time day program and a part-time evening program. NYLS's faculty includes 54 full-time and 59 adjunct professors. Notable faculty members include E ...

and Cooley Law School, for misrepresenting their post-graduate employment statistics to lure students to take on hundreds of thousands dollars in debt. Kurzon was the lead attorney who filed a lawsuit representing a class of about 9,000 unpaid '' Huffington Post'' bloggers, claiming that the ''Huffington Post'' and its acquirer AOL unjustly made profits by using the unpaid writers' work.

Political career

Kurzon became involved in New York City politics in 2007 as one of the top fundraisers for

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

, raising over $150,000 for the candidate and organizing one of the earliest and largest grassroots groups in New York City in support of the candidate.

2014 congressional election

In February 2013, Kurzon announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for

New York's 7th congressional district New York's 7th congressional district is a congressional district for the United States House of Representatives in New York City. It includes parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan. Democrat Nydia Velázquez represents the district in Congr ...

against 22-year incumbent

Nydia Velázquez Nydia Margarita Velázquez Serrano (born March 28, 1953) is a politician serving in the United States House of Representatives since 1993. A Democrat from New York, Velázquez chaired the Congressional Hispanic Caucus until January 3, 2011. He ...

. Kurzon pledged to not accept any PAC or lobbyist money, challenging Velázquez (who sits on the Financial Services Committee) to do the same. After the

Federal Election Commission The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent regulatory agency of the United States whose purpose is to enforce campaign finance law in United States federal elections. Created in 1974 through amendments to the Federal Election Cam ...

issued guidance on Bitcoin, Kurzon announced he would be the first candidate in New York to accept bitcoin donations from individuals. In the June 24, 2014 primary, Kurzon lost to Velázquez by a large margin.Representative in Congress: Election Returns June 24, 2014
New York State Board of Elections.

Election results

In October 2021, Kurzon joined

Andrew Yang Andrew Yang (born January 13, 1975) is an American businessman, attorney, lobbyist, and politician. Yang was a candidate in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries and the 2021 New York City Democratic mayoral primary. He is the co-c ...

's Forward Party PAC team.

External links

Ballotpedia

"Kurzon for Congress" Campaign website

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kurzon, Jeff Living people 1976 births Phillips Exeter Academy alumni American people of Armenian descent New York (state) Democrats Candidates in the 2014 United States elections 21st-century American politicians McGill University Faculty of Law alumni Candidates in the 2018 United States elections Members of the Forward Party (United States)