Abraham L. Pomerantz was a 1924 graduate of Brooklyn Law School

Brooklyn Law School

Brooklyn Law School is a law school located in Brooklyn Heights, in Downtown Brooklyn, New York.-History:Founded in 1901 by William Payson Richardson and Norman P. Heffley, Brooklyn Law School was the first law school on Long Island. Using space provided by Heffley’s business school, the law...

 and a founding partner of the law firm of Pomerantz Haudek Block Grossman & Gross LLP. He is considered by many to have been the "dean of the class action

Class action

In law, a class action, a class suit, or a representative action is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and/or in which a class of defendants is being sued...

 bar". Pomerantz pioneered suits by small shareholders against officials of such big corporations as McDonnell Douglas Corp. and the Dreyfus Fund. He specialized in so-called derivative suits, in which the company receives the award and passes it on to all stockholders.

Pomerantz served as U.S. Deputy Chief Counsel prosecuting industrial war criminals such as those at I.G. Farben but resigned at the Nuremberg Trials

Nuremberg Trials

The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....

 in protest at the low caliber of the judges assigned to try these cases. In the introduction to the printed script of Judgment at Nuremberg

Judgment at Nuremberg

Judgment at Nuremberg is a 1961 American drama film dealing with the Holocaust and the Post-World War II Nuremberg Trials. It was written by Abby Mann, directed by Stanley Kramer, and starred Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Maximilian Schell, Werner Klemperer, Marlene Dietrich, Judy...

, Abby Mann

Abby Mann

Abby Mann was an American film writer and producer.-Life and career:Born as Abraham Goodman in Philadelphia, he grew up in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was best known for his work on controversial subjects and social drama...

 credited a conversation with Pomerantz for giving him the initial interest in Nuremberg.

At the National Conference on the German Problem (Society for the Prevention of World War III

Society for the Prevention of World War III

The Society for the Prevention of World War III was an organization set up in the U.S. in 1944 during World War II that advocated a harsh peace for Germany in order to completely remove Germany as a future military threat....

) held on March 6, 1947 Pomerantz made a presentation on the Nuremberg trials where he noted a lack of resources, poor quality of US judges, and incompetence of the US occupation government

Office of Military Government, United States

The Office of Military Government, United States was the United States military-established government created shortly after the end of hostilities in occupied Germany in World War II. Under General Lucius D...

. He complained in his speech:

"Up to this moment, no single Nazi industrialist has been brought to trial. Nevertheless, the prosecutions are scheduled to end this year. Some few industrialists will be tried, and possibly convicted. The rest will go scot free... I have been struggling with how... to depict to you the chaos, the confusion, the demoralization that is taking place there."http://www.columbialawreview.org/assets/pdfs/109/5/Bush.pdf

Pomerantz died November 20, 1982 at the age of 79.

The Pomerantz Law Firm provides funding support for the Abraham L.Pomerantz Lecture series which focuses on topics of corporate securities law and related issues of professional responsibility.