Benjamin Kaplan (April 11, 1911 – August 18, 2010) was an American copyright and procedure scholar and jurist. He was also notable as "one of the principal architects"David Childs

''The Independent'', September 10, 2010. of the

Nuremberg trial The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II. Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded m ...

s.Bruce Weber
"Benjamin Kaplan, Crucial Figure in Nazi Trials, Dies at 99"
(Obituary), ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', 2010-08-24. And as Reporter to the U.S. Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Civil Rules, he played a pivotal role in the 1966 revisions to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, which transformed class action practice in the U.S.

Early years

Kaplan grew up in the

South Bronx The South Bronx is an area of the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of the Bronx. The area comprises neighborhoods in the southern part of the Bronx, such as Concourse, Bronx, Concourse, Mott Haven, Bronx, Mott Haven, Melrose, B ...

, graduating from

DeWitt Clinton High School , motto_translation = Without Work Nothing Is Accomplished , image = DeWitt Clinton High School front entrance IMG 7441 HLG.jpg , seal_image = File:Clinton News.JPG , seal_size = 124px , ...

at the age of 14. He then attended City College, graduating in 1929 at the age of 18, and

Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (Columbia Law or CLS) is the law school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university in New York City. Columbia Law is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world and has always ranked i ...

in 1933, and engaged in private practice until 1942 when he joined the Army.

Career

In 1945, while a

lieutenant colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

in the army, Kaplan joined the prosecution team developing the case against the

Nazi war criminals The following is a list of people who were formally indicted for committing war crimes on behalf of the Axis powers during World War II, including those who were acquitted or never received judgment. It does not include people who may have commi ...

. Kaplan supervised the research and developed legal strategies for the case. In 1947 he joined the faculty at Harvard Law School. Kaplan co-wrote the first casebook on copyright, with

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by ''U ...

Professor Ralph Brown in 1960.Bryan Marquard
"Benjamin Kaplan, 99, esteemed jurist, law professor"
(obituary), ''

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'', 2010-08-20. As the Royall Professor of Law at

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

, he delivered a series of lectures at Columbia Law in 1966. The James S. Carpentier Lectures were then published in 1967 as ''An Unhurried View of Copyright''. Kaplan was also an influential proceduralist. In 1952 he co-edited (with Richard Field) the first procedure casebook to address the 1938 federal rules of civil procedure. Among Kaplan's students at Harvard were future U.S. Supreme Court Justices

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; ; March 15, 1933September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by President ...

and

Stephen Breyer Stephen Gerald Breyer ( ; born August 15, 1938) is a retired American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1994 until his retirement in 2022. He was nominated by President Bill Clinton, and repl ...

, the latter of whose views on copyright appear to have been influenced by those of Judge Kaplan. Among his former law clerks are the influential scholar

Cass Sunstein Cass Robert Sunstein (born September 21, 1954) is an American legal scholar known for his studies of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, law and behavioral economics. He is also ''The New York Times'' best-selling author of ...

and

First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

attorney

Marjorie Heins Marjorie Heins (b.1946) is a First Amendment lawyer, writer and founder of the Free Expression Policy Project.Beth Saulnier"The Talking Cure" ''Cornell Alumni Magazine'', Sept./Oct. 2013. Education Heins received a B.A., with distinction, from Co ...

. Kaplan also served on the

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) is the court of last resort, highest court in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Although the claim is disputed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the SJC claims the di ...

from 1972 to 1981 and later on the

Massachusetts Appeals Court The Massachusetts Appeals Court is the intermediate appellate court of Massachusetts. It was created in 1972 as a court of general appellate jurisdiction. The court is located at the John Adams Courthouse at Pemberton Square in Boston, the same ...

Family

In 1942 Kaplan married to

Felicia Lamport Felicia Lamport (1916 – 23 December 1999), was an American poet and satirist who also wrote a column for ''The Boston Globe'' called "Muse of the Week in Review". She was particularly well known for her inventive use of the pun. Life and work ...

(1916 – 23 December 1999), a political satirist and writer of light verse. The couple had two children.

Death

Kaplan died of pneumonia in his

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

home on August 18, 2010 at 99 years old. Tributes compiled in the ''

Harvard Law Review The ''Harvard Law Review'' is a law review published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the ''Harvard Law Review''s 2015 impact factor of 4.979 placed the journal first out of 143 ...

'' were authored by Justices Breyer and Ginsberg,

Associate Justice Raya Dreben, Marjorie Heins,

Arthur R. Miller Arthur Raphael Miller (born June 22, 1934), is a leading scholar in the field of American civil procedure and a University Professor at New York University and Chairman of The NYU Sports & Society Program. Early life and education Miller was b ...

Martha Minow Martha Louise Minow (born December 6, 1954) is an American legal scholar and the 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard University. She served as the Dean of Harvard Law School between 2009 and 2017 and has taught at the Law School sin ...

and

Lloyd L. Weinreb Lloyd L. Weinreb (October 9, 1936 – December 15, 2021) was an American law professor. Emeritus at Harvard Law School (a chair once held by Joseph Story), he was first appointed to the HLS faculty in 1965 and became a full professor in 1968. Bi ...

Bibliography

* ''An Unhurried View of Copyright'' (1967; Reprinted 2008 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. i
hardcover
an
paperback
.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaplan, Benjamin 1911 births 2010 deaths 20th-century American Jews American legal writers Copyright scholars Justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Writers from Massachusetts Columbia Law School alumni Harvard Law School faculty Nuremberg trials 20th-century American judges DeWitt Clinton High School alumni City College of New York alumni Judges of the Massachusetts Appeals Court People from the Bronx 21st-century American Jews