Nat Lewin

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Nathan Lewin is an American lawyer. 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.He is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, New York, the Supreme Court of the United States, all federal appellate circuits, and many United States District Courts.He has engaged in trial and appellate litigation in federal and state courts for 40 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. Since entering private practice he has argued in the Supreme Court another 15 times, for a total of 27 arguments in the Supreme Court. His Supreme Court cases have included the representation of banks and other commercial interests as well as criminal cases and issues of constitutional law. Mr. Lewin was law clerk to Chief Judge J. Edward Lumbard 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). Mr. Lewin also served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, and before that as Deputy Administrator of the Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs at the Department of State. On leaving government service, Mr. Lewin was a founding partner of Miller Cassidy Larroca and Lewin, which was one of the nation's foremost litigation "boutiques" for more than thirty years.He has been listed in Best Lawyers in America since its first editions in the areas of Criminal Defense, Business Litigation, and First Amendment Law, and was included in "Washington's Best 75 Lawyers" in the April 2002 Washingtonian magazine.

In 1974-1975 Mr. Lewin was Visiting Professor at the Harvard Law School, teaching Advanced Constitutional Law (First Amendment Litigation), appellate advocacy, and the first formal course ever given in a national law school on the Subject of "Defense of White-Collar Crime." He teaches a seminar in Supreme Court litigation at Columbia Law School. He has been 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. He was also an author and Contributing Editor to The New Republic between 1970 and 1991. His articles on the 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.

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.

[edit] Famous clients

Mr. Lewin's individual clients have included Attorney General Edwin Meese III in an Independent Counsel investigation; former President Richard Nixon in the Supreme Court case testing the constitutionality of the taking of Presidential papers and tapes; actress Jodie Foster in the prosecution of John Hinckley; performer John Lennon in the successful appeal of his immigration case; Barnett Bank to establish in the Supreme Court the right to sell discounted trademark merchandise; and national Jewish organizations on religious liberty issues. Recently, he represented Yosef Goldman in his lawsuit against Christies.

[edit] Controversy

An essay by Mr. Lewin in the online journal Shama sparked controversy due to Lewin's proposal that family members of suicide bombers who do not renounce the attack of their relative be themselves executed. He claimed that this would deter further bombings. It was widely condemned by many in the Jewish community.

Whether Jewish law would support the option advocated by Lewin in the article is debatable. However, he did state, "Finally, can Jewish law and tradition accept this seeming punishment of innocents? The Torah commanded the total eradication - including women and children - of certain nations (Amalek[ites] being a singular illustration) because of the continuing threat its members presented to the survival of Israel. When there is no other deterrent, self-defense entitles one to take measures that are ordinarily unacceptable."[1]