“He’s what Michael Jordan is to sports, Shakespeare to literature or Einstein to science”. These words from Solomon Schmidt, author of the only biography “of arguably the most iconic lawyer in American history” Alan Dershowitz. Schmidt spares no ink portraying Dershowitz “a lightning rod for controversy” at times taking legal positions diametrically opposed to his personal beliefs. Schmidt examines the uncertain legacy of a Legal Gladiator.
Born and raised in a community steeped in Orthodox Judaism “Avi” ( later Anglicized to Alan) Dershowitz was a “smart aleck” in school. He butted heads with the Rabbis often disputing conventional wisdom in Jewish law. Placed in a “garbage class” in high school, with zero expectations for a promising future, a camp counselor convinced Dershowitz he had brains to spare.
Graduating from Yale at 24, followed by a clerkship in the Supreme Court, Dershowitz accepted assistant professorships at Harvard, teaching criminal law. Labeled “boy professor” his career soared as his marriage to Sue Barlach began to flounder and end in divorce.
Author Solomon Schmidt chronicles Dershowitz’s astonishing legal career representing firebrands such as Meir Kahane leader of the Jewish defense League. A “barracuda in the courtroom” Dershowitz was strongly committed to help Soviet “refuseniks ”including fighting for the release of Anatoly ( Natan ) Sharansky.
What propelled Dershowitz into the stratosphere of jurisprudence was the “case of the decade,” the successful appeal of the guilty verdict of Claus Von Bulow for the killing his wife. The events were recorded in a book and movie titled The Reversal of Fortune adding world wide fame to a stellar career.
Always arguing cases on the basis of “Procedural mistakes or constitutional violations” Dershowitz represented celebrities and “heavy duty” clients such as real estate mogul Leona Helmsley “the Queen of mean”, owner of the Empire State Building and opulent hotels. Dershowitz became a titan among appellate lawyers often representing pro-bono clients some of whom alleged to have committed rape or murder.
Driven by the Halachic injunction “justice, justice shall you pursue” Dershowitz was one of the most popular teachers of criminal law. He taught potentially influential students like Mike Pompeo, Ted Cruz, Natalie Portman, Elena Kagan. A prolific writer and passionate Zionist his several controversial books such as Chutzpah or Case for Israel, accorded him media attention and enough hate mail to warrant bulletproof windows in his Harvard office. A constitutional scholar, Dershowitz fought for “constitutional rights of every American to a rigorous defense.” He had nightmares if Ted Bundy were ever to ask him for representation. Bundy did not ask but O.J. Simpson’s team did.
Though Dershowitz’s career may have “launched him into immortality,” two decisions in his life brought him incalculable “tsuris ”--- his support against Donald Trump’s impeachment and the ambivalent relationship with his friend “The Talented Jeffrey Epstein”. A superb read, “not written by or for lawyers.”