Nat Lewin
Encyclopedia
Nathan Lewin is an American
attorney
.
He received his B.A.
summa cum laude from Yeshiva College in 1957, and earned his J.D.
magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School
in 1960, where he was treasurer of the Harvard Law Review
.
of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
(1960–1961) and to Associate Justice John M. Harlan
of the Supreme Court of the United States (1961–1962). Lewin also served as Deputy Administrator of the Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs at the Department of State. He later served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General
in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.
Upon leaving government service, Lewin was a founding partner of Miller Cassidy Larroca and Lewin. Lewin was listed in Best Lawyers in America for Criminal Defense, Business Litigation, and First Amendment Law, was number two in "Washington's Best 75 Lawyers" in the April 2002 edition of Washingtonian magazine, and has been listed in three categories for more than 25 yers in "The Best Lawyers in America."
Lewin has practiced law in the District of Columbia, New York, the Supreme Court of the United States, all federal appellate circuits, and many United States District Courts. Lewin has engaged in trial and appellate litigation in federal and state courts for more than 45 years.
While he was an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Department of Justice
under Solicitors General Archibald Cox
and Thurgood Marshall
, he argued 12 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States
. In private practice Lewin argued in the Supreme Court an additional 15 times, for a total of 27 Supreme Court appearances. His Supreme Court cases included the representation of banks and other commercial interests as well as criminal cases and issues of constitutional law.
Lewin has been a champion in advocating for First Amendment rights and civil liberties. He has successfully argued many cases involving the right to display the Chanukah menorah in a public forum including two such cases before en banc courts of the Sixth and Eleventh Circuits. Among these cases was County of Allegheny v. ACLU in which the Supreme Court
held that the Lubavitch had the right to maintain a menorah on public property in Pittsburgh. He represented an Air Force psychologist in the Supreme Court case testing his constitutional right to wear a yarmulke while on duty. Lewin also represented the Williamsburg Hasidic community in the Supreme Court in its constitutional challenge in 1976 to a racially-conscious legislative reapportionment, urging a rule of constitutional law that the Supreme Court accepted 20 years later. He initiated a lawsuit against Yale University on behalf of Orthodox freshmen and sophomores who could not reside in co-educational dormitories on religious grounds. He brought lawsuits on behalf of Sabbath-observers who were discriminated against in private employment, on behalf of military chaplains who were denied the right to wear religiously-motivated beards, and on behalf of Jewish prisoners who were denied kosher food. He was the attorney for the Satmar Kiryas Joel school for handicapped children in defense of a law creating a special public school district for handicapped children in that community, a case that was heard by the Supreme Court in 1994.
Lewin drafted a number of legislative provisions that preserve the constitutional right to freedom of religion including: the provision of the federal Civil Rights Act enacted in 1972 that protects religious observances of private employees, the provision of federal law that enables federal employees to observe religious holidays without financial penalty, the provision of New York’s Domestic Relations Law that conditions the issuance of a civil divorce on removal of barriers to remarriage such as the delivery or acceptance of a Jewish religious divorce, and the provision of federal law that entitles servicemen to wear yarmulkes.
In 1974-1975 Lewin was Visiting Professor at the Harvard Law School
and taught Advanced Constitutional Law (First Amendment Litigation), appellate advocacy, and "Defense of White-Collar Crime
." Lewin was Adjunct Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown Law School and at the University of Chicago Law School
, and taught Jewish Civil Law at George Washington University Law School in 1998 and 2001. Lewin also led a seminar in Supreme Court litigation at Columbia Law School
.
Between 1982 and 1984 he served as President of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington
and for more than 30 years he served as the national vice president of the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs
(COLPA). Lewin was president of the American Section of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists
from 1992 to 1997. He is currently Honorary President of its successor, the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists.
Lewin's individual clients have included Attorney General Edwin Meese III, whom he represented while he was serving as Attorney General, President Richard Nixon
, Jodie Foster
, John Lennon
, nursing home owner Bernard Bergman, Congressman George Hansen, Teamsters president Roy Williams, and Israeli war hero Aviem Sella
.
Nat Lewin represented Sholom Rubashkin
, who was sentenced to 27 years in jail.
Lewin conceded he submitted a picture of Baruch Hertzfeld dancing with a non-Jewish woman to an Orthodox rabbinical court as part of his case against him, but insists it was "a minor detail of the case."
Currently, Lewin practices law together with his daughter Alyza D. Lewin, at Lewin & Lewin, LLP. Lewin & Lewin, LLP specializes white-collar criminal defense and in federal appellate litigation and is located in Washington, D.C.
between 1970 and 1991. His articles on law and the Supreme Court have appeared in The New York Times
, The Los Angeles Times, Newsday
, Saturday Review, The Washington Post
, and other periodicals.
In an essay in Sh'ma, Lewin said that suicide bombing could be deterred by a policy of executing parents or other immediate adult relatives of suicide bombers unless the family members could prove that they had tried to dissuade or prevent the suicide bombing or been totally unaware of the bomber's plan. His proposal created controversy in the Jewish community.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
attorney
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
.
Early life and education
Lewin was born in Lodz, Poland. His family fled Poland just ahead of the Nazis in 1939 and arrived in the United States in 1941. Lewin grew up in New York City.He received his B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
summa cum laude from Yeshiva College in 1957, and earned his J.D.
Juris Doctor
Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...
magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
in 1960, where he was treasurer of the Harvard Law Review
Harvard Law Review
The Harvard Law Review is a journal of legal scholarship published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School.-Overview:According to the 2008 Journal Citation Reports, the Review is the most cited law review and has the second-highest impact factor in the category "law" after the...
.
Career
Lewin was law clerk to Chief Judge J. Edward LumbardJ. Edward Lumbard
Joseph Edward Lumbard, Jr. was a United States federal judge.Lumbard was born in Harlem, New York City. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. In 1920, while an undergraduate Harvard University, he was expelled by its "Secret Court" of 1920 for associating with a group of...
of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals...
(1960–1961) and to Associate Justice John M. Harlan
John Marshall Harlan II
John Marshall Harlan was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1955 to 1971. His namesake was his grandfather John Marshall Harlan, another associate justice who served from 1877 to 1911.Harlan was a student at Upper Canada College and Appleby College and...
of the Supreme Court of the United States (1961–1962). Lewin also served as Deputy Administrator of the Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs at the Department of State. He later served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.
Upon leaving government service, Lewin was a founding partner of Miller Cassidy Larroca and Lewin. Lewin was listed in Best Lawyers in America for Criminal Defense, Business Litigation, and First Amendment Law, was number two in "Washington's Best 75 Lawyers" in the April 2002 edition of Washingtonian magazine, and has been listed in three categories for more than 25 yers in "The Best Lawyers in America."
Lewin has practiced law in the District of Columbia, New York, the Supreme Court of the United States, all federal appellate circuits, and many United States District Courts. Lewin has engaged in trial and appellate litigation in federal and state courts for more than 45 years.
While he was an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
under Solicitors General Archibald Cox
Archibald Cox
Archibald Cox, Jr., was an American lawyer and law professor who served as U.S. Solicitor General under President John F. Kennedy. He became known as the first special prosecutor for the Watergate scandal. During his career, he was a pioneering expert on labor law and also an authority on...
and Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from October 1967 until October 1991...
, he argued 12 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
. In private practice Lewin argued in the Supreme Court an additional 15 times, for a total of 27 Supreme Court appearances. His Supreme Court cases included the representation of banks and other commercial interests as well as criminal cases and issues of constitutional law.
Lewin has been a champion in advocating for First Amendment rights and civil liberties. He has successfully argued many cases involving the right to display the Chanukah menorah in a public forum including two such cases before en banc courts of the Sixth and Eleventh Circuits. Among these cases was County of Allegheny v. ACLU in which the Supreme Court
Supreme court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of many legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, instance court, judgment court, high court, or apex court...
held that the Lubavitch had the right to maintain a menorah on public property in Pittsburgh. He represented an Air Force psychologist in the Supreme Court case testing his constitutional right to wear a yarmulke while on duty. Lewin also represented the Williamsburg Hasidic community in the Supreme Court in its constitutional challenge in 1976 to a racially-conscious legislative reapportionment, urging a rule of constitutional law that the Supreme Court accepted 20 years later. He initiated a lawsuit against Yale University on behalf of Orthodox freshmen and sophomores who could not reside in co-educational dormitories on religious grounds. He brought lawsuits on behalf of Sabbath-observers who were discriminated against in private employment, on behalf of military chaplains who were denied the right to wear religiously-motivated beards, and on behalf of Jewish prisoners who were denied kosher food. He was the attorney for the Satmar Kiryas Joel school for handicapped children in defense of a law creating a special public school district for handicapped children in that community, a case that was heard by the Supreme Court in 1994.
Lewin drafted a number of legislative provisions that preserve the constitutional right to freedom of religion including: the provision of the federal Civil Rights Act enacted in 1972 that protects religious observances of private employees, the provision of federal law that enables federal employees to observe religious holidays without financial penalty, the provision of New York’s Domestic Relations Law that conditions the issuance of a civil divorce on removal of barriers to remarriage such as the delivery or acceptance of a Jewish religious divorce, and the provision of federal law that entitles servicemen to wear yarmulkes.
In 1974-1975 Lewin was Visiting Professor at the Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
and taught Advanced Constitutional Law (First Amendment Litigation), appellate advocacy, and "Defense of White-Collar Crime
White-collar crime
Within the field of criminology, white-collar crime has been defined by Edwin Sutherland as "a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation" . Sutherland was a proponent of Symbolic Interactionism, and believed that criminal behavior was...
." Lewin was Adjunct Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown Law School and at the University of Chicago Law School
University of Chicago Law School
The University of Chicago Law School was founded in 1902 as the graduate school of law at the University of Chicago and is among the most prestigious and selective law schools in the world. The U.S. News & World Report currently ranks it fifth among U.S...
, and taught Jewish Civil Law at George Washington University Law School in 1998 and 2001. Lewin also led a seminar in Supreme Court litigation at Columbia Law School
Columbia Law School
Columbia Law School, founded in 1858, is one of the oldest and most prestigious law schools in the United States. A member of the Ivy League, Columbia Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Columbia University in New York City. It offers the J.D., LL.M., and J.S.D. degrees in...
.
Between 1982 and 1984 he served as President of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
and for more than 30 years he served as the national vice president of the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs
National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs
The National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs is a voluntary association of attorneys whose purpose is to represent the observant Jewish community on legal, legislative, and public-affairs matters....
(COLPA). Lewin was president of the American Section of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists
International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists
The International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists strives to advance human rights everywhere, including the prevention of war crimes, the punishment of war criminals, the prohibition of weapons of mass destruction, and international co-operation based on the rule of law and the fair...
from 1992 to 1997. He is currently Honorary President of its successor, the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists.
Lewin's individual clients have included Attorney General Edwin Meese III, whom he represented while he was serving as Attorney General, President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
, Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster
Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress....
, John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
, nursing home owner Bernard Bergman, Congressman George Hansen, Teamsters president Roy Williams, and Israeli war hero Aviem Sella
Aviem Sella
Aviem Sella is a former colonel in the Israeli Air Force. He is a combat veteran of the Six-Day War, commanded Operation Opera, the air strike against the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, and was a commanding officer in Operation Mole Cricket 19 during the 1982 Lebanon War.While a graduate...
.
Nat Lewin represented Sholom Rubashkin
Sholom Rubashkin
Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin , an ultra-Orthodox Jew of the Lubavitcher Hasidic movement, is a former executive officer and vice president of Agriprocessors, a now-bankrupt slaughterhouse and meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa formerly owned by his father, Aaron Rubashkin...
, who was sentenced to 27 years in jail.
Lewin conceded he submitted a picture of Baruch Hertzfeld dancing with a non-Jewish woman to an Orthodox rabbinical court as part of his case against him, but insists it was "a minor detail of the case."
Currently, Lewin practices law together with his daughter Alyza D. Lewin, at Lewin & Lewin, LLP. Lewin & Lewin, LLP specializes white-collar criminal defense and in federal appellate litigation and is located in Washington, D.C.
Publications By Lewin
Lewin has written numerous articles on American jurisprudence, politics, and religion. He was an author and Contributing Editor to The New RepublicThe New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
between 1970 and 1991. His articles on law and the Supreme Court have appeared in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, The Los Angeles Times, Newsday
Newsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...
, Saturday Review, The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, and other periodicals.
In an essay in Sh'ma, Lewin said that suicide bombing could be deterred by a policy of executing parents or other immediate adult relatives of suicide bombers unless the family members could prove that they had tried to dissuade or prevent the suicide bombing or been totally unaware of the bomber's plan. His proposal created controversy in the Jewish community.