Born in New York City, Albert Sacks graduated magna cum laude from City College of New York in 1940. After serving in World War II, he attended Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1948.

He then served as a law clerk for Justice Augustus Hand of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and from 1949 to 1950 was a law clerk for Justice Felix Frankfurter of the Supreme Court.

He then worked as an associate at Covington & Burling in Washington before joining the faculty at Harvard.

Mr. Sacks was a past president of the Association of American Law Schools and a member of the United States Supreme Court Advisory Committee on Rules of Civil Procedure. He was also chairman of Home Rule Commission in Boston and had served on the Massachusetts Attorney General's advisory committee on civil rights and civil liberties.

He is survived by his wife, Sadelle; two daughters, Janet Sacks of Bedford, Mass., and Margery Ablon of Lloyds Harbor, L.I.; and three grandchildren.