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Anthony G. Amsterdam is an American lawyer and Professor Emeritus of law at NYU School of Law. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1960, Amsterdam clerked for Justice Felix Frankfurter and then served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia. In 1962, he took his first teaching position at the University of Pennsylvania. He moved to Stanford in 1969, where he later was named the Montgomery Professor of Clinical Legal Education, the first endowed clinical chair in American legal education.

In 1981, already established as one of the leading legal scholars in the United States, he moved to NYU School of Law to serve as Director of Clinical and Advocacy Programs. At NYU Law he designed the groundbreaking Lawyering Program, now a fixture of the first-year course curriculum. He also served on the ABA Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession (The MacCrate Task Force), chairing its committee to prepare the “Statement of Fundamental Lawyering Skills and Professional Values.”