Alan M. Dershowitz

Alan M. Dershowitz was born September 1, 1938 in Brooklyn, and eventually graduated from Brooklyn College and Yale Law School, where he served as the editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. Currently, he is a widely known American political figure, a lawyer, and a criminal law professor at Harvard Law School. He has become almost as well known in recent history for his published writings on law and political views as he is for serving as a lawyer. In addition to all of this, Dershowitz has also maintained a strong support for Israel and for his Jewish upbringing (he attended a Jewish high school and is Jewish himself).

Famous Dershowitz Cases

While Dershowitz is known for these attributes, he is probably best known for two of his most high-profile cases: one involving Claus von Bulow and an attempted murder charge and another involving O.J. Simpson and the murder charges brought up against him. In the Bulow trial, Dershowitz successfully defended him on a charge brought up that he had murdered his wife by giving her a shot of insulin. Eventually, with the help of Glenn Close, Jeremy Irons, and Ron Silver, this specific case hit the silver screen in the 1990 film, “Reversal of Fortune.” In the latter case, Dershowitz served as a member of the group of lawyers who eventually became known as the “Dream Team.” Simpson’s “Dream Team” was able to convince a jury that O.J. Simpson had not killed his ex-wife and her boyfriend, despite an outstanding amount of evidence that pointed towards Simpson as the killer. Both of these cases shot Dershowitz’s level of fame up and made him a household name in America.

Dershowitz’s Recent Work

So just what is Alan Dershowitz doing these days? When he is not teaching at Harvard, Dershowitz is writing a book on former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, and his name has even been mentioned as a possible lawyer to defend Hussein in a trial. Interesting, Dershowitz also has stated that he would defend Adolf Hitler and win, justifying this by saying that, “Hitler would have walked free if no one defended him, so why not?” Alan M. Dershowitz continues to be an influential and important lawyer in the scope of America.