James M. Kaufman

Jim was graduated from The University of Oklahoma in 1973 with a B.B.A. degree in Finance and from The University of Oklahoma in 1976 with a J.D. The first half of his years of practice focused on insurance defense including researching and writing coverage opinions at the request of major insurance companies. For over a decade he served as Managing Attorney for the Oklahoma office of a Fortune 500 national insurance company. During the first half of his career, he tried many jury trials throughout the state of Oklahoma including defending two nursing home negligence cases to verdict and final judgment. During the second half of his career, his practice branched out into employment law defending cases for a major home improvement retailer, doing high volume collection work for a major directory publisher, and representing injured plaintiffs and their families in wrongful death cases in serious injury cases including oil field injuries, serious automobile and semi-truck tractor collisions, and nursing home negligence. Jim is admitted to all Federal Courts sitting in Oklahoma, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and to the United States Supreme Court. He was also among the initial attorneys appointed to the Court-annexed arbitration panel for the Western District of Oklahoma (Federal Court). For a representative list of some of his appellate work, see the reported cases of Moore v. Delivery Services, 1980 OK CIV APP 38, Kansas City Fire & Marine Ins. Co. v. Rogers, 1994 OK CIV APP 3, Harder, Adm’r v. F. C. Clinton, Inc., 1997 OK 137, and Atchley v. Hewes, 1998 OK CIV APP 143. He has also been involved in unreported cases on appeal in the State Court system and he worked on one reported decision on long arm jurisdiction published by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma and another case involving priority of lien filings by competing creditors.