Alan Dershowitz (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images for Hulu)
We need lawyers who are nobly willing to take on the weak clients. The destitute clients. The dangerous clients who nonetheless are innocent until proven guilty and deserve a competent defense. Those lawyers do critical work in unheralded obscurity, and… Alan Dershowitz is not one of them.
Instead, Dershowtiz is here to serve a different kind of unsavory client: the wealthy immoral ones. The ones with a lot of money and a lot of fame but with no “prestige.” If you are a rich celebrity who polite society has turned on, Alan Dershowtiz can hear you crying when all anybody else can hear is the sound of your limousine whisking you away to a private beach in Malibu. And he wants to help. If we still utilized the punishment of banishment, Dershowitz would be able to help you never, ever go away.
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If you understand that, you’ll understand this story from the Hollywood Reporter:
“I have been retained to consult with Benjamin Brafman, Esquire who is representing Harvey Weinstein,” [Alan Dershowitz] states in a declaration. “I have agreed to consult on the specific issue of Mr. Brafman’s access to his client’s personal and business emails. On information and belief, it is my professional opinion that Mr. Brafman has the right to see and review these emails in order to prepare his constitutionally-mandated role as counsel to Mr. Weinstein. Mr. Brafman has the right to defend his client in the courts of law, in negotiations with prosecutors, in resolving civil claims in negotiation with civil lawyers and in the court of public opinion. On information and belief these emails contain information which is exculpatory of Mr. Brafman’s client and places the allegations against him in a truthful context.”
Although Dershowitz says he is only a consultant, he also tells the judge he is prepared to offer a memorandum in support of Weinstein’s bid for documents.
I’m disappointed, in myself, that I didn’t predict this. Dershowitz has been making all the rounds as Trump’s unaffiliated legal defender. That blinded me to the equally putrid but more wealthy potential client hiding in plain sight. Trump is really a fake billionaire. Harvey Weinstein is the real deal. Nearly everybody in the world would be happy if Weinstein just moved to Mars and never came back. Of course Dershowitz is interested in helping that guy out.
And, you know what, good for Alan Dershowitz. Somebody has to man that wall. Somebody has to defend the more cartoonish villains of our age. Somebody has to root through the trash and say, “This man here,” — it’s always a man — “should not be thrown away just because he’s an oozing boil on our society, without due process of law.”
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Really, my only problem with Dershowitz’s client roster is that he wins sometimes. Ideally, Dershowitz would fight as hard as he can, still lose, and we could all feel great that bad guy has been vanquished in a fair fight.
I hope he loses this time. I hope Weinstein gets punted into the sun. But I’m glad Alan Dershowitz is here to say, “You don’t just punt… men… into the sun because they totally deserve it in every way.” Somebody needs to make that argument, and the rest of us need to beat it.
The Harvard Law professor is helping the embattled movie mogul get “exclupatory” emails from The Weinstein Co. [Hollywood Reporter]
Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [email protected]. He will resist.