Alan Dershowitz: Education, Career, and Impact on Law and Society

Alan Morton Dershowitz, born on September 1, 1938, is an eminent American lawyer, jurist, author, and political commentator, renowned as a prominent scholar of United States constitutional law and criminal law. His career is marked by significant contributions to legal academia, high-profile case involvement, and prolific writing.

Early Life and Education

Dershowitz's journey began in Brooklyn, New York, where he grew up in a working-class family. He describes himself as a rebellious student in his early years. After graduating from Yeshiva University High School, an independent boys' prep school in Manhattan, he attended Brooklyn College, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude in political science in 1959. He then pursued law at Yale Law School, where he excelled, graduating first in his class with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) and serving as editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal.

Early Career and Harvard Law School

After graduating from law school, Dershowitz clerked for Chief Judge David L. Bazelon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1962 to 1963. Dershowitz described Bazelon as an influential mentor. He has said, "Bazelon was my best and worst boss at once…. He taught me everything-how to be a civil libertarian, a Jewish activist, a mensch. He then clerked for Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, and, among other tasks, drafted the opinion in Escobedo v. Illinois.

In 1964, at the young age of 25, Dershowitz joined the faculty of Harvard Law School. Three years later, in 1967, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history at age 28. For decades, he remained a fixture at Harvard, holding the Felix Frankfurter Professorship of Law from 1993 until his retirement in December 2013. “Actually, I don’t think of myself as moving into retirement,” said Dershowitz during an interview with the Bulletin. “I’m just changing jobs-and it feels a bit strange to me. “It’s hard for me to think that my career at Harvard is coming to an end. “I was always the youngest person everywhere I went. I was the youngest assistant professor, the youngest full professor, the youngest this and the youngest that. Now I’m among the oldest, and it’s hard for me to think that my career at Harvard is coming to an end. Although Dershowitz is leaving teaching, he wants to stay forever connected to the school.

Contributions to Harvard and Legal Education

Dershowitz's teaching career at Harvard spanned five decades, during which he instructed over 10,000 students. He brought practical experience from the courtroom into the classroom, bridging the gap between legal theory and practice. He considers his contributions towards making it "easier for Jewish students to express their Jewish values and their support for Israel,” as one of his biggest accomplishments at the University. When he first came, he says, people called him the “first Jewish Jew at Harvard.” He would often quote Jewish sources in his class, was active in Jewish events on campus, and did not hold class on Jewish holidays. “I didn’t try to hide my identity,” Dershowitz said. When he was up for tenure, a colleague warned him that “I was wearing my Jewishness on my sleeve,” which would hurt his chances. Today, being Jewish at Harvard…is very different from what it was five decades ago, he says, as Harvard is “a much more accepting, tolerant place.”

Read also: More on Alan Garber

High-Profile Cases and Legal Advocacy

Throughout his career, Dershowitz has been involved in numerous high-profile legal cases, often taking on controversial and unpopular causes and clients. As of 2009, he had won 13 of the 15 murder and attempted murder cases he handled as a criminal appellate lawyer. His clients have included such high-profile figures as Patty Hearst, Leona Helmsley, Jim Bakker, Mike Tyson, Michael Milken, O. J. Simpson, Julian Assange, and Claus von Bülow.

Some of his major legal victories have included two successful appeals that overturned convictions: first for Harry Reems in 1976, then in 1984 for Claus von Bülow, who had been convicted of the attempted murder of his wife, Sunny. In one of his first high-profile cases, Dershowitz represented Claus von Bülow, a British socialite, on appeal for the attempted murder of his wife, Sunny von Bülow, who went into a coma in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1980 (and later died in 2008). He succeeded in having the conviction overturned, and von Bülow was acquitted in a retrial. Dershowitz told the story of the case in his book Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow case (1985), which was adapted into a movie in 1990.

In 1995, Dershowitz served as the appellate adviser on the murder trial of O. J. Simpson as part of the legal "Dream Team" alongside Johnnie Cochran and F. Lee Bailey. During the murder trial of O. J. Simpson, Dershowitz acted as an appellate adviser to Simpson's defense team, and later wrote a book about it, Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O. J. Simpson Case (1996).

Controversies and Public Debates

Dershowitz is known for his outspoken views and willingness to engage in public debates on a wide range of issues. He has been a strong advocate for civil liberties, free speech, and academic freedom, often defending these principles even when they involve controversial or unpopular viewpoints.

He has engaged in public debates with several other commentators, including Meir Kahane, Noam Chomsky, and Norman Finkelstein. After President Jimmy Carter published his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (2006)-which argues that Israel's control of Palestinian land is the primary obstacle to peace-Dershowitz challenged Carter to a debate at Brandeis University.

Dershowitz has also taken a stand against what he calls the discriminatory nature of final clubs at Harvard. “I myself have never belonged to and would never belong to a club that picks and chooses based on how cool you are,” he says, “so I myself don’t approve of final clubs.”

Views on Israel

Dershowitz is a staunch defender of Israel and has written extensively on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His books, "The Case for Israel" (2003) and "The Case for Peace" (2005), present his arguments for Israel's right to exist and his vision for a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

Dershowitz says that his position on the political spectrum has not altered at all. He has always identified as strongly liberal, but he believes that the views of people around him have changed, specifically with regard to Israel, which he says used to be very much a liberal cause. Without any prompting on my end, he delves into his opinions on the matter, explaining that to him, this diminishing support from the left is “appalling.” He continues, “If you’re a liberal and a progressive, you should support the country in the world that has the best record on women’s rights, on environmental rights, on gay rights, and that’s Israel.”

Views on Torture

After the September 11 attacks, Dershowitz published an article in the San Francisco Chronicle titled "Want to Torture? Get a Warrant", in which he advocated the issuance of warrants permitting the torture of terrorism suspects if there were an "absolute need to obtain immediate information in order to save lives coupled with probable cause that the suspect had such information and is unwilling to reveal it." He argued that authorities should be permitted to use non-lethal torture in a ticking time bomb scenario and that it would be less destructive to the rule of law to regulate the process than to leave it to individual law-enforcement agents' discretion.

Political Affiliation

Dershowitz was a member of the Democratic Party until September 2024, when he renounced the party and became an Independent, citing several "anti-Jewish" lawmakers in the party and the 2024 Democratic National Convention, at which Vice President Kamala Harris became the party's presidential nominee. In the 2020 Democratic Party primaries, Dershowitz endorsed Joe Biden. He said: "I'm a strong supporter of Joe Biden. I like Joe Biden.

Author and Scholar

Dershowitz is a prolific author, having written over 30 fiction and non-fiction works. His books cover a wide range of topics, including law, politics, civil liberties, and Jewish identity. Some of his most notable works include "Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow Case" (1985), "Chutzpah" (1991), "Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O. J. Simpson Case" (1996), "The Case for Israel" (2003), and "Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law" (2013). He has also published more than 1000 articles in magazines, newspapers, journals and blogs such as The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, Huffington Post, Newsmax, Jerusalem Post and Ha’aretz.

His autobiography, Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law, was published in October 2013 by Crown, a division of Random House. Earlier titles include “an exceptional, action packed book,” The Trials of Zion, a novel which has been called “a thought-provoking page turner;” Rights From Wrong; The Case For Israel; The Case For Peace; Blasphemy; Preemption; Finding Jefferson; and Shouting Fire. In addition to his numerous law review articles and books about criminal and constitutional law, he has written, taught and lectured about history, philosophy, psychology, literature, mathematics, theology, music, sports - and even delicatessens.

Recognition and Awards

Dershowitz's contributions to law and society have been recognized with numerous awards and honors. In 1983, the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith presented him with the William O. Douglas First Amendment Award for his "compassionate eloquent leadership and persistent advocacy in the struggle for civil and human rights." He has also been awarded honorary doctor of laws degrees by several institutions of learning, including Yeshiva University, Brooklyn College, Syracuse University, Tel Aviv University, New York City College, and Haifa University. Dershowitz was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1979, and in 1983 received the William O.

Continuing Activity

Even after his retirement from Harvard, Dershowitz remains active as a lawyer, author, and political commentator. He continues to consult on high-profile legal cases and contribute to public discourse on important issues. Dershowitz begins to tell me his life story, a speech that he’s clearly given countless times and has down perfectly. He speaks quickly and efficiently-this man has places to go. He is the classic self-made man: he grew up in Brooklyn, New York, with two working parents, neither of whom had gone to college. He was a terrible elementary and high school student, he says, with about a 68 percent average. “I made it to Brooklyn College by the skin of my teeth,” he recounts. His family would not have been able to afford tuition, but luckily, attending Brooklyn College was free at the time. Dershowitz improved his grades, earning straight A’s in college and then at Yale Law School. In 1964, at the age of 25, he began teaching at Harvard, soon becoming one of the youngest tenured professors at the Universisty. “And that’s all I’ve been doing,” he says. “I’ve had one job in my life-a professor at Harvard-and I’ve had it for 50 years.”Clearly, teaching at Harvard is not all he has been doing. He has won over 100 court cases and lectured to over a million people across the globe.

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