documentThe opinions of Judge Bazelon over the years had the laid the foundation for this decision and several of them were cited in the briefs filed by his friends Abe Fortas and Abe KrashHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
who had been appointed to Represent Gideon. (My friend John Hart Ely was working for the Fortas firm during the summer the briefs were being prepared and I reviewed and edited several drafts with John.) Bazelon’s opinions—more often dissent...
documentEventually Freedman and I became friends and colleaguesHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
and he went on to become Dean of Hofstra Law School and one of the nation’s leading experts in legal ethics. I tried to follow in his large footsteps but I’m not sure I ever made as good an oral argument as he did in the Morgan case. It was...
documentI searched and searchedHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
but Freedman had mined every possible nugget from the sparse record and to no avail. There was no plausible legal basis for reversal. I learned several important lessons from this exercise in futility: there’s an enormous difference between...
documentMy first case involved a man named “Daniel Jackson Oliver Wendell Holmes Morgan”—Quite a name! Any lawyer would be proud to have been named after. “Daniel WebsterHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
” “Andrew Jackson” and “Oliver Wendell Holmes.” That’s what Mr. Morgan thought too. The only problem was he wasn’t a lawyer and that wasn’t his name! He was an uneducated
documentWhen the conference was over and the case assignedHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
we would meet with the judge and he would tell us which clerk was to work on the opinion. I always got the interesting cases (at least the ones that interested the judge). My co-clerk
documentSince Bazelon was the Chief JudgeHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
he always presided and got to assign the opinion to one of the three judges on a panel (or nine when on rare occasions the entire court heard the case “en banc”). Following the oral argument
documentThe primary job of the law clerk related to the appellate cases that came before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In the years I was a clerkHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
that court served not only as a federal appellate court
documentBazelon was never satisfied. He never told me that a draft opinion or article was good. It always needed to be “made better.” “It’s getting there” or “it’s closeHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
” was the highest compliment he ever paid. But when it was done and published
documentDavid Bazelon was in the justice businessHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
though he used the law—sometimes stretching it beyond existing precedent—to bring about what he regarded as a just result. He was a “judicial activist”
documentJudge Bazelon did the same with regard to criminal casesHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
especially those involving defendants who could not afford an adequate defense and those with serious mental illnesses. He would ask his clerks to scour the records of cases—even those not assigned to him—for evidence of injustice. He told....
