Dr. Leonard Kopelman

25-Year Honorand in Extension

Dr. Leonard Kopelman

Virtually every year for the past 25 years, Dr. Leonard Kopelman's course, Financial Accounting Principles, has appeared on the top ten courselist for the Harvard Extension School. Most years his course has topped the list, and he can boast that he probably has offered instruction to more Extension School students in the last 25 years than any other instructor. Literally hundreds of students each year, and many thousands over the last quarter century, have been initiated into the arcana of accounting through Dr. Kopelman's lectures.

But numbers, even to an accountant, tell only half the story, for Dr. Kopelman has been honored in the past by the Harvard Extension School for the quality of his teaching as well. In 1989 he was selected for the Petra T. Shattuck Award for Excellence in Teaching, and in 1992 he received the JoAnne Fussa Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Certificate of Special Studies in Administration and Management (CSS) Program.

A native Bostonian, Leonard Kopelman graduated from Harvard College with honors in 1962 and from the Harvard Law School in 1965. In his current law practice, he represents approximately half the cities and towns in Massachusetts, several state agencies, and is general counsel to Emerson College.

He serves as a master in the Superior Court and is admitted to the Supreme Court of the United States. He was a former chair of the Education Committee of the American Judges Association, the former president of the Massachusetts State Chamber of Commerce, and a participant in several foreign policy conferences for senior business executives with the Secretary of State. He is the current consul general of Finland and the director general of the International Consular Corps.

In addition to his teaching in the Harvard Extension School, Dr. Kopelman has taught in the area of management at the Harvard Law School, Harvard Business School, and Harvard College. He has also lectured extensively in other countries on management. He is the author of various books and articles, and is a former editor of The Quarterly Journal of Economics. He has received a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant in Jurisprudence and was appointed by the President of the United States to head the Office of Economic Opportunity in Massachusetts.

Dr. Kopelman is listed in Who's Who in American Law, Who's Who in America, and Who's Who in the World. Earlier this year, The National Law Journal cited Leonard Kopelman as ranking among the top dozen lawyers in Massachusetts for "influence, impact, power." He will be honored at the Harvard Extension School Alumni Banquet on June 5 for his 25 years of dedicated teaching.