Louis Nizer (1902–1994)

I don't often read court lawyer memoirs, but this one recalls to me Triumph of Justice: Closing the Book on the Simpson Saga. In both cases, the authors strike me as sold on their own brilliance. Maybe to be successful in that work, one needs the self-confidence and even the brilliance. For this one, a compendium of many cases and case types, I enjoy most the mechanics of witness examination and the practical realities of psychology learned by the author. This ranged from technical aspect show more like the negative pregnant to his own Rule of Probability: "What was probable, probably happened." This was not so much a rule as a yardstick for testing the credibility of evidence. It calls upon the trial attorney to evaluate what his client is telling him had occurred and what his adversary presents as evidence against the attorney's own life experience and common sense.

It seems almost quaint the shock Nizer feels is evident in such things as private group nudism and in-home foot fethishists and cross-dressers. These apparently prurient topics for contemporary readers, with exception detail for the foot fetisher, arose in divorce cases described which include the more prosaic infidelities around that involving Eleanor Holm, American competition swimmer and Olympic gold medalist. In 1954, she divorced Billy Rose—receiving $30,000 a month (worth $267,546 today) in alimony and a lump sum of $200,000 (worth $1,783,643 today).

Libel cases include that of Quentin Reynolds, journalist and embedded frontline World War II war correspondent for his libel suit against right-wing Hearst columnist Westbrook Pegler, who called him "yellow" and an "absentee war correspondent". Reynolds through Nizer, won $175,001 (approximately $1.5 million in 2014 dollars), at the time the largest libel judgment ever.

While it note make the back cover, the case of Victor Ridder, publisher of the New Yorkers Staats-Zeitung, unmasked as a Nazi agent after being a signatory to the “Christmas Declaration” in December 1942, which urged the German people to sue for peace. The concluding case of the Joseph Vogel MGM Presidency had promise of being a new topic due to the difference of venue: the press and proxy shareholder bouts, etc. However, it felt the most tedious and lacking any center of real interest in this day, dealing with significant corporate turmoil, including a takeover attempt in 1957 from former president Louis B. Mayer in association with two board members, Stanley Meyer and Joseph Tomlinson. Vogel managed to fight off the takeover attempt with Nizer's help... show less

Nizer is blowing his own horn here, as well he should -the guy was a master at his craft. An interesting slice of history mid-20th century history as well. I wonder what he would have made of Depp v Heard...?

An even-handed legal analysis of the Rosenberg trial. Biographical background of the Rosenbergs and others involved is given, along with explanation of the political attitudes of the times in which they lived.

The Rosenbergs WERE Communists, but their lifestyle belied the accusation that they were such well-paid spymasters. The saddest part of the whole thing to me was the self-serving testimony of Ethel's brother which resulted in such a disparity of sentences (including his wife's never show more being charged).

Were they guilty? I don't know, but they did themselves no favor by their invoking the Fifth on many crucial questions.

I was a very little girl during these events and always thought they were executed for treason. Not so; they were convicted for CONSPIRACY to commit espionage. I wonder if anyone else was ever executed on this charge in America. show less

Louis Nizer was a very high reputation lawyer, on the Civil side of the legal profession. His memoir concerns several of most high profile civil cases of the 1940's and the 1950's. He was often concerned with cases of censorship and of libel and defamation, usually in the area of civil rights and freedom of speech. The book is quite readable, and is certainly informative.