Interview with YU Alumnus & Agriprocesors Attorney Nat Lewin

Mr. (or Herr Doctor when he goes to Europe) Nathan Lewin, born in Poland on January 31, 1936, was raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He attended the Ramaz Lower School, Yeshiva High School, and Yeshiva College, where he earned a BA in English. He then attended Harvard Law School, from which he graduated magna cum laude in 1960. Since then, he has argued in the Supreme Court twenty-seven times, and has been counted among America's top lawyers. The Washingtonian magazine recently named him one of twenty "Legends of the Bar," making him the youngest on the list. He has also represented celebrities such as John Lennon, Jodie Foster, former president Richard Nixon, and many others. He is also the only lawyer to represent an Attorney General while in office.

The Jerusalem Post has called him "an Orthodox Clarence Darrow, a defender of Jewish liberties." He represented the "Yale 5," five orthodox Jews in Yale who argued that, because of religious concerns, they shouldn't have to live in co-ed dorms. He has defended other Jewish figures, popular and unpopular, such as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Meir Kahane, Jonathan Pollard's Israeli handler Aviem Sella, and Bernard Bergman, to name but a few. Mr. Lewin was president of the American Section of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists from 1992 to 1997. Between 1982 and 1984, he served as President of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington, which speaks for approximately 220 Jewish organizations and synagogues in the Greater Washington area.

He is currently representing Agriprocessors in the ongoing kosher meat packing scandal and has taken time out of his busy schedule for an interview with the Commentator's Sammy Steiner, talking about his success in the American legal system, why English is such a great major, and why Talmud Torah and law school are like apples and baseballs. Commentator: What was your major in YU and why did you choose it? Nat Lewin: I became an English major because of Professor David Fleisher, who made English literature very interesting and challenging. The focus on writing in literature served me very well in terms of law school and after. People have asked me what they should major in to become a lawyer, and I have said to them that English is the best major for somebody who wants to go law school.

C: Did you know you wanted to be a lawyer when you started YU? NL: When people asked me what I was going to do, I said I was going to be a lawyer. But I had no idea what lawyers did. I figured I was probably going to be either a lawyer or a rabbi.

C: What did you expect out of law? NL: I had no idea what to expect out of law. In those days, the career guidance was not as sophisticated and intensive as it is today. I took the LSAT without any preparation and did very well, and I ended up getting scholarships to Yale Law School and to Harvard Law School.

C: Why did you choose Harvard over Yale? NL: I originally decided to go to Yale since it was closer to home and I could come home for shabbasim. My father paid the $100 fee to reserve my position, and I did not keep my space at Harvard Law School. However, in those days, law school admission wasn't really concluded until after graduation. Then, at graduation, I spoke to a friend's father who was a lawyer, and he asked me what I was doing after I graduated. I told him very proudly that I was going to Yale Law School. He said, "Well, that's very good, but I'm sorry that you were not accepted to Harvard." I said "I was!" Then he told me, "Nathan, if you were accepted to Harvard and didn't go, you are crazy." So I said to my father that Mr. Miller, the only lawyer I knew, said that I was crazy if I didn't go to Harvard. My father said, "well that's up in Boston; can you keep Kosher up there in Boston?" I called around and found out that there was an apartment there with three YU graduates who were looking for a fourth. My father wrote out a check to Harvard for $100. I went to Harvard without knowing anything more than, if I didn't go to Harvard, I was crazy.

C: Was Harvard a surprise? Did it catch you off guard, or was it what you expected? NL: It caught me off guard because, when I got the materials for Harvard, I saw that there were only 2 or 3 hours of classes in the morning. I figured this was going to be a cinch after YU, where I was in shiur until 3 o'clock, then went to college classes, and then did a lot of extracurriculars like The Commentator and the student council. Then I discovered when I went to Harvard that a) I needed a lot of preparation for each one of these classes and b) these classes were very intensive and if you really listened and tried to follow the discussion it was very tiring. After class, when I came home to the apartment, I made lunch and took a nap because I was so tired from the class experience. The whole approach was a surprise, too. I assumed going to law school was learning the halacha and that being a lawyer was telling the halacha to your clients. I discovered law school made you question everything: why is this the way it is, is this right.

C: Did you feel that YU adequately prepared you for Harvard Law? NL: Only in the sense that the English courses sharpened my ability to put on paper what was in my mind. That is why English is so important. The ability to communicate an idea is the key to much of law practice. The political science courses didn't help, the quasi-legal courses didn't help, but the English did.

C: I have often heard that studying gemara helps with law school. Did you find that to be the case? NL: The law school approach is to question everything and not to accept anything. In class in law school, we read a case that came before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and I assumed when I read it that this was the halacha, that this was like the mishna, you couldn't argue with it if that was the principle. Then I go to class and the professor asks: is this right? Then he goes on to give ten reasons why it wasn't. Frankly, I felt that the learning in Yeshiva was a hindrance to the law school approach. Once you get past that, the ability to distinguish between cases is sharpened somewhat by the learning experience. Torah and law school was like apples and baseballs as opposed to apples and oranges.

C: The Jerusalem Post has called you an Orthodox Clarence Darrow, a defender of Jewish liberties. Is that a role that you sought for yourself or did it just develop over time? NL: It developed over time. My grandfather was elected twice to the Polish parliament, my father did a lot of community work on a volunteer basis, and I grew up seeing that. Requests were made of me to take on Jewish cases because of my yeshiva background, and I felt that I should do it. If you are ready to do it, then you do it. As a result, one thing leads to another, mitzvah goreret mitzvah.

C: You have argued cases before the Supreme Court a total of 27 times. Can you tell us about the first? NL: The first time I was with the office of the Solicitor General. After I clerked on the Supreme Court, I went to work for the Kennedy administration, for Bob Kennedy in the Department of Justice. I spent one year in the criminal division, during which I went down to the trial and worked on the four-person team that prosecuted Jimmy Hoffa in Nashville, Tennessee. Then I joined the office of the Solicitor General, which now has about twenty-five lawyers; in those days it had only ten lawyers in the whole office. And that office is responsible for all the government litigation in the Supreme Court of the US. I wrote briefs in the Supreme Court and argued cases for the US. During the time I was with the Solicitor General's office, I argued twelve cases in the Supreme Court, and I have argued fifteen since then in private practice. The first of the twelve cases was a tax case assigned to me through the office of the Solicitor General. I prepared very intensively, I stood up and argued it, and, between us, I think I did a terrible job. I won that case, but I came back from the argument feeling terrible. With all that preparation, I had not anticipated some lines of questioning. The Supreme Court is totally spontaneous. With all my hard work, I thought I did a very bad job. The man who was Solicitor General at the time, a distinguished professor at Harvard Law School, Archibald Cox, was a very nice boss. He told me, "Well, you know that's the first one… you'll get better." Thank God, I did, and I've made some very good arguments in the Supreme Court since then, but the first one was a disaster.

C: Have you ever faced anti-Semitism either from your clients or from judges? NL: I have had, frankly, a large amount of respect for my religious observance. Almost all judges have respected it - occasionally there is an exception, but that is very rare. In terms of my clients, I've represented Richard Nixon and Ed Meese, making me the only lawyer who has represented a sitting Attorney General. They are very respectful of my religious observance. I had Ed Meese and his wife, who are not Jewish, over my house for yom tov meals. They were very respectful of religious observance; that has been generally true of every client and judge that I have encountered. If you are consistent, sincere, and not overreaching, then I think it is possible to encounter respect for your religious observance.

C: Is there something you would like to say to current YU students? NL: When I went to law school, there was rank discrimination by law firms against Sabbath observers and people who were religious. In the 1960s, before the enactment of the Civil Rights Act, it was standard to ask young lawyers, particularly if they went to Yeshiva, whether they were Sabbath observers. I got lectures from a good number of law firms that it was impossible for me to be a practicing lawyer and still be a Sabbath observer. They told me that I should get a dispensation from my rabbi if I was going to be a lawyer. This came from Jewish firms as well as non-Jewish firms. That's no longer true; people are shomer shabbas and wear yarmulkes in top law firms all over the country. However, with all of that, my major disappointment is that I don't see Yeshiva College graduates and other frum lawyers getting up and saying they are going to spend their time fighting for the rights of observance. They become tax lawyers, they become securities lawyers, they have to provide for parnasa for their families, they write wills, they do real estate. They do everything but litigate for Jewish rights. If you ask me what I would tell YC students who want to be lawyers, I would tell them to think about, when you practice law, practicing in an area - litigation or something - where you can help further the religious observances and religious rights of Jews in the United States.

C: Do you read the Commentator? NL: Yes! I get it on email and occasionally it comes in the mail.