An expert in wills, trusts, estates, and fiduciary administration, Robert H. Sitkoff is the John L. Gray Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he was the youngest professor with tenure to receive a chair in the history of the school. Sitkoff previously taught at New York University School of Law and at Northwestern University School of Law. He has won three distinguished teaching awards.
Sitkoff's research focuses on economic and empirical analysis of trusts, estates, and fiduciary administration. His work has been published in leading scholarly journals such as the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, and the Journal of Law and Economics. Sitkoff is the surviving co-author of Wills, Trusts, and Estates (Aspen 9th ed. 2013), the leading American coursebook on trusts and estates. Sitkoff's research has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Financial Times, among other media. In 2007, Lawyer's Weekly USA named Sitkoff as an up-and-coming lawyer.
Sitkoff is an active participant in trusts and estates law reform. He serves under Massachusetts gubernatorial appointment on the Uniform Law Commission (ULC). Within the ULC, he is Chair of the Drafting Committee for an Act on Divided Trusteeship and is a liaison member of the Joint Editorial Board for Uniform Trusts and Estates Acts. He previously served as a member of several other drafting committees for uniform trusts and estates acts and as the Reporter for the Uniform Statutory Trust Entity Act (Last Revised 2013). Within the American Law Institute (ALI), Sitkoff is a member of the Council, the ALI's Board of Directors, and he is a member of the Council's Projects Committee. He is currently an Adviser for the Restatement of Charitable Nonprofits and the Restatement (Third) of Conflict of Laws. He previously served on the consultative groups for the Restatement (Third) of Trusts and the Restatement (Third) of Property: Wills and Other Donative Transfers.
Sitkoff serves as an advisory consultant and expert witness in litigation and regulatory matters involving wills, trusts, estates, and fiduciary administration. He has also led training workshops for trust officers and other professional fiduciaries. Sitkoff edits the Wills, Trusts, and Estates abstracting journal in the Social Science Research Network, is a past chair of the Section on Trusts and Estates of the Association of American Law Schools, and is an academic fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel.
Prior to joining the legal academy, Sitkoff was a law clerk to then Chief Judge Richard A. Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. At the University of Chicago Law School, from which he graduated with High Honors, Sitkoff was the Managing Editor of the Law Review, was selected for the Order of the Coif, and was awarded the Olin Prize as the outstanding graduate of his class in law and economics.
