Harvey J Goldschmid

An expert on corporate law who, as a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission, was a strong advocate of making public corporations responsible to shareholders. Mr. Goldschmid, a Democrat, was named to the commission by President George W. Bush in 2002, just after the president had signed one of the most sweeping federal securities laws ever enacted, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Mr. Goldschmid was born on May 6, 1940, in the Bronx, where his father worked as a furrier and a postal worker. Mr. Goldschmid said in an S.E.C. Historical Society interview that he knew he wanted to be a lawyer from the time he was 12. An alumnus of Columbia College and Columbia Law School, Mr. Goldschmid joined the law school faculty in 1970 and became the Dwight Professor of Law in 1984. He served as general counsel of the S.E.C. from 1998 to 1999 and as a special senior adviser to the chairman, Arthur Levitt Jr., in 2000. He was a commissioner from 2002 to 2005. After he returned to Columbia Law School to teach antitrust and corporate and securities law, Mr. Goldschmid was also a consultant to several agencies on policy making. Mr. Goldschmid’s three sons, Charles, Paul and Joseph, all followed in his path as law graduates of Columbia. They survive him, as does his wife, Mary.