Abe Krash was hired on a temporary basis as the twelfth lawyer at Arnold, Fortas & Porter in 1952. He spent his career there. In 2006, he delivered a lecture at Georgetown Law School on the changes in the legal profession he witnessed, but his oral history itself is a case study of change from an era when lawyers considered themselves generalists capable of handling any legal problem to today's view of them as specialists and even "technicians." Krash tells of his run-in with founding partner Thurman Arnold over the younger man's objection to the firm's pro bono representation of poet and Fascist Ezra Pound. Arnold responded, "Look sonny boy, you like to think of yourself as being a civil liberties lawyer, don't you? It is very easy to be a civil liberties lawyer if you are representing people with whom you agree and whom you like. The real test is whether you stand up for people who you don't like and whose opinion you detest."
Friday, October 10, 2014
Abe Krash Speaks!
Over the years, I've gotten to know and highly regard Abe Krash, an Arnold & Porter partner (and W. W. Crosskey enthusiast) who for many years was a visiting professor from practice at Georgetown Law. Now, as part of its essential collection of oral histories, the Historical Society of the DC Circuit has posted an oral history of Mr. Krash, conducted by Stuart F. Pierson, Esq. Here is the society's teaser:
Abe Krash was hired on a temporary basis as the twelfth lawyer at Arnold, Fortas & Porter in 1952. He spent his career there. In 2006, he delivered a lecture at Georgetown Law School on the changes in the legal profession he witnessed, but his oral history itself is a case study of change from an era when lawyers considered themselves generalists capable of handling any legal problem to today's view of them as specialists and even "technicians." Krash tells of his run-in with founding partner Thurman Arnold over the younger man's objection to the firm's pro bono representation of poet and Fascist Ezra Pound. Arnold responded, "Look sonny boy, you like to think of yourself as being a civil liberties lawyer, don't you? It is very easy to be a civil liberties lawyer if you are representing people with whom you agree and whom you like. The real test is whether you stand up for people who you don't like and whose opinion you detest."
Abe Krash was hired on a temporary basis as the twelfth lawyer at Arnold, Fortas & Porter in 1952. He spent his career there. In 2006, he delivered a lecture at Georgetown Law School on the changes in the legal profession he witnessed, but his oral history itself is a case study of change from an era when lawyers considered themselves generalists capable of handling any legal problem to today's view of them as specialists and even "technicians." Krash tells of his run-in with founding partner Thurman Arnold over the younger man's objection to the firm's pro bono representation of poet and Fascist Ezra Pound. Arnold responded, "Look sonny boy, you like to think of yourself as being a civil liberties lawyer, don't you? It is very easy to be a civil liberties lawyer if you are representing people with whom you agree and whom you like. The real test is whether you stand up for people who you don't like and whose opinion you detest."
