William Rubenstein

William B. Rubenstein (born 1960) is an American legal scholar and the Bruce Bromley Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Professionally, he specializes in complex litigation and civil rights advocacy. He has advocated widely for the rights of gay, lesbian, and HIV-positive individuals. He teaches civil procedure and complex litigation classes.

Early life and education Rubenstein was born in 1960. He is originally from Pennsylvania, although he claims he never had an intent to stay. He attended Taylor Allderdice High School in Pittsburgh before receiving his B.A. magna cum laude from Yale College in New Haven in 1982.

During this time, Rubenstein challenged the Reagan administration's response to the AIDS crisis. In 1987, he led the ACLU's lawsuit against the President's Commission on the HIV Epidemic's hearings, in which he defended the position that the commission's makeup was not representative of the group of people actually affected by AIDS. Rubenstein advocated for a larger and more inclusive commission and closer conformity with the terms of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Rubenstein also litigated civil rights cases in state and federal courts throughout the country and oversaw the ACLU's national litigation docket on these issues. Rubenstein argued the landmark case, Braschi v. Stahl Associates, 544 N.E.2d 49 (N.Y. 1989), before New York's highest court, yielding the first decision in the United States recognizing an unmarried but cohabitating gay couple as a legal family. During the same years, Rubenstein also taught courses on sexual orientation and AIDS law at Harvard and Yale Law Schools. In 2000, he was chosen as that year's Honoring with Pride honoree by the American Foundation for AIDS Research.

Teaching career While practicing with the ACLU (1987-1995), Rubenstein also taught courses on sexual orientation and AIDS law at Harvard and Yale Law Schools. In conjunction with those courses, he authored the first law school casebook in the area, now entitled Cases and Materials on Sexual Orientation and The Law (now with Carlos Ball and Jane Schacter, 4th ed. 2011). In 2012, he was awarded the 2012 Albert M. Sacks-Paul A. Freund Award for Teaching Excellence at Harvard Law School.

Other activities Rubenstein currently serves as director and advisor for several boards. He was chosen to be one of the advisors to the Project on the Principles of the Law of Aggregate Litigation, the American Law Institute's 2009 effort to re-think class action law.

He is co-chair of the Class Action Subcommittee of the ABA's Mass Torts Committee, which addresses current and emerging issues in management aspects of mass tort litigation, including joinder of multiple parties and the use of Alternative Dispute Resolution. He regularly serves as an expert witness in class action lawsuits.

Selected works Rubenstein's books about issues of sexuality and health include Cases and Materials on Sexual Orientation and the Law (1997); the co-authored work, The Rights of People Who Are HIV Positive (1996) (which received the 1997 American Bar Association Certificate of Merit); Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Law (1993); and AIDS Agenda: Emerging Issues in Civil Rights (1992), co-edited with Nan D. Hunter.

Since 2008, Rubenstein has been the sole author of Newberg on Class Actions and he is in the process of re-writing the entire eleven-volume treatise for its Fifth Edition.