Ronald Goldfarb photo color

Ronald L. Goldfarb

Practice Areas

  • Literary Law and Agency
  • Intellectual Property

Education

  • JSD – Yale Law School (1962)
  • LLM – Yale Law School (1960)
  • LLB – Syracuse University Law School (1956)
  • B.A. – Syracuse University (1954)

Ronald Goldfarb is a Washington, D.C. attorney, author, and literary agent. He is listed in Who’s Who In the United States, Who’s Who In Law, and other listings of prominent Americans, writers and scholars.

He was a member of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the Department of Justice, and conducted grand jury investigations and successful multi-defendant criminal trials in federal courts in Florida, Kentucky, and Ohio. For several months in 1964, the Justice Department delegated Goldfarb to the Presidential Task Force which created the Office of Economic Opportunity.

In 1966, Goldfarb founded a law firm with Stephen Kurzman (formerly legislative assistant to New York Senator Jacob Javits) which specialized in special legal assignments (both worked on the Kerner Commission study of riots; Goldfarb was a consultant to The Brookings Institution on courts and The Administration of Justice, and to the California Legislature’s Study of Courts and The Administration of Justice in California.) He was appointed Special Counsel to the United States House of Representatives Inquiry into the charges against Representative Adam Clayton Powell. He specialized in public interest law, particularly in correctional reform (trying a landmark Eighth Amendment case condemning conditions at the D.C. Jail), peacefully negotiating a hostage-taking riot at the jail, organizing an ex-offender organization which has operated successfully for over forty years. He also was counsel for other public interest organizations: Washington Independent Writers; The Association for the Advancement of the Humanities; The Association of Writers and Writing Programs.

He is the author of 12 books of non-fiction and two fiction books. His 13th non-fiction book is due to be published in 2020.

Mr. Goldfarb resides in Alexandria, Virginia and in Key Biscayne, Florida with his wife, the architect Joanne Goldfarb. They have three children and seven grandchildren.