Apr 15, 2018 ¡ The raid on President Trumpâs lawyer dramatically demonstrates the need for new legislation to assure that no FBI agents or U.S. attorneys ever get to read privileged communications between a ...
Nov 06, 2012 ¡ Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American attorney, political commentator, and jurist. He has spent the past fifty years practicing the law and is well recognized for handling a number of high-profile legal cases. As a criminal appellate attorney, Alan has won fifteen, which is a high percentage of the dozens of attempted murder and murder cases he has managed.
Fighting for Civil Liberties since 1962. Alan Dershowitz is a Brooklyn native who has been called 'the nation's most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer' and one of its 'most distinguished defenders of individual rights,' 'the best-known criminal lawyer in the world,' 'the top lawyer of last resort,' and 'America's most public Jewish defender.'.
Alan Morton Dershowitz ( / ËdÉËrĘÉwÉŞts / DURR-shÉ-wits; born September 1, 1938) is an American lawyer known for his work in U.S. constitutional law and American criminal law. From 1964 to 2013 he taught at Harvard Law School, where he was appointed the âŚ
www .alan-dershowitz .com. Alan Morton Dershowitz ( / ËdÉËrĘÉwÉŞts /; born September 1, 1938) is an American lawyer known for his work in U.S. constitutional law and American criminal law. He taught at Harvard Law School from 1964 through 2013, where he was appointed as the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law in 1993.
In May 2018, Dershowitz joined Harvey Weinstein 's legal team as a consultant for Weinstein's lawyer Benjamin Brafman. Dershowitz advised the team on obtaining documents from The Weinstein Company related to the sexual abuse allegations against Weinstein.
Dershowitz sued The Boston Globe in 1990 over a remark reporter Mike Barnicle attributed to him, in which Dershowitz allegedly said he preferred Asian women because they are deferential to men. Dershowitz reportedly received a $75,000 out-of-court settlement, and the newspaper's ombudsman questioned Barnicle's credibility, according to The Boston Phoenix.
In January 2020, Dershowitz joined 45th President Donald Trump's legal team as Trump was defending against impeachment charges that had proceeded to the Senate. Dershowitz's addition to the team was notable, as commentators pointed out that Dershowitz was a supporter of Hillary Clinton and had offered occasionally controversial television defenses of Trump in the preceding two years. The statement announcing Dershowitz's joining the team said that Dershowitz was "nonpartisan when it comes to the Constitution.â Dershowitz said he would not accept any compensation, and if he was paid something, he would donate it to charity. Dershowitz defended his representation of Trump, which was controversial among critics of Trump, saying "I'm there to try to defend the integrity of the constitution â that benefits President Trump in this case." Dershowitz said that his role would be limited to presenting oral arguments before the Senate opposing impeachment.
Dershowitz was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on September 1, 1938, the son of Claire (nĂŠe Ringel) and Harry Dershowitz, an Orthodox Jewish couple. He was raised in Borough Park. His father was a founder and president of the Young Israel of Boro Park Synagogue in the 1960s, served on the board of directors of the Etz Chaim School in Borough Park, and in retirement was co-owner of the Manhattan-based Merit Sales Company. Dershowitz's first job was at a deli factory on Manhattan 's Lower East Side in 1952, at age 14.
After the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour indicated that Israeli officials might be investigated and indicted for possible war crimes, Dershowitz labelled her statement "bizarre", called for her dismissal, and wrote about what he called the "absurdity and counterproductive nature of current international law". In an op-ed several days later in The Boston Globe, he argued that Israel was not to blame for civilian deaths: "Israel has every self-interest in minimizing civilian casualties, whereas the terrorists have every self-interest in maximizing them â on both sides. Israel should not be condemned for doing what every democracy would and should do: taking every reasonable military step to stop the killing of their own civilians."
Dershowitz told the story of the case in his book, Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von BĂźlow case (1985), which was turned into a movie in 1990. Dershowitz was played by actor Ron Silver, and Dershowitz himself had a cameo role as a judge.
When Alan Dershowitz arrived at Yale Law School in the fall of 1959, there was no road map on how to be an American civil liberties lawyer, let alone an Alan Dershowitz. Even now itâs difficult to name anyone comparable. There have been other prominent lawyers who have represented controversial political causes and unpopular defendantsâClarence Darrow, William Kuntsler and Ramsey Clark are obvious candidatesâbut none carried on their careers with the publicness with which Dershowitz has conducted his life. âThere isnât another lawyer like Dershowitz,â civil rights attorney Ron Kuby told me. âAlan is sui generis and he knows it.â
âI was born a civil libertarian. I was brought up a civil libertarian.â At 14, against the wishes of his parents, Dershowitz signed a communist-inspired petition opposing the death penalty for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg as a matter of principle, even though he personally detested communism. But he hadnât heard the term âliber tarianâ until he took an ethics course at Brooklyn College with John Hospers, later the 1972 presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party, and even then Hospersâ libertarianism had an economic emphasis on free markets that didnât resonate with Dershowitzâs left-leaning social politics.
Dershowitz is careful to say, over and over, that heâs not Trump âs lawyer. Heâs not providing legal advice to the president, and heâs had no conversations under the cloak of attorney-client privilege. But his public statements, argued everywhere from Fox News to the Village Underground, amount to a case with a clear legal shape, the kind of thing a lawyer might argue, if it ever came to court.
Other civil libertarians acknowledged the legitimacy of Dershowitzâs concern, but said it lacked important context. âNo-knock warrants are not unusual. Raiding a lawyerâs office happens rarely but regularly. None of this is new,â said civil rights attorney Ronald Kuby. âIt doesnât make it right. But it also doesnât make Donald J. Trump the victim of a rapacious criminal justice system.â
In his view, President Richard Nixon did not obstruct justice by ordering the firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Rather, Dershowitz says, Nixon obstructed justice by telling subordinates to lie to the FBI, by paying hush money to potential witnesses against him, and by destroying evidence.
Dershowitz himself has said that Trump should not fire Mueller, but no one has done more than he has to give cover to Republicans in Congress who might choose to look the other way were Trump to do so. Watching Dershowitzâs recent appearances on Hannity, one has the feeling that heâs allowing himself to be used.