Oral history interview with Jack B. Weinstein, 2011.

Biographical Note

United States federal judge, Eastern District of New York.

Scope and Contents

Born: 1921, Wichita, Kansas, childhood in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, father employed by National Cash Register Company [NCR], work at Brooklyn and Manhattan Navy Yard, College: Brooklyn College, U.S. Navy, Naval training at Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT], Harvard University. WWII in U.S. Navy, Japanese Sea; Marriage to Evelyn Horowitz; Law school: Columbia University; Columbia Law Review; law secretary to Stanley Fuld; Thurgood Marshall and Brown v. Board of Education; Associate professor at Columbia University Law School; Legal Defense Fund, reporter for New York Practice; Nassau County politics, WMCA, Inc. v. Lomenzo, founding of Nassau/Suffolk Law Services Committee, Inc., Tweed Commission; City Bar Association; New York Civic Procedures; author Evidence Treatise and Manual; committee to revise federal courts and increase efficiency; move from academic to federal judge; Civil Procedure, appointment as United States federal judge, Eastern District of New York, mass torts, class action, presiding over Dow Chemical Company v. Stephenson, Agent Orange; asbestos, Manville; Diethylstilbestrol [DES], long-arm jurisdiction; NAACP v. A.A. Arms, et al. ruled gun industry created public nuisance; Zyprexa, MultiDistrict Litigation [MDL] action, democratization of mass torts, video recording in court room, run for Court of Appeals, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act [RICO] cases, death penalty, habeas corpus appeals; recollections of: James Bender, Curtis Berger, Margaret Berger, Shiela Birnbaum, Charles Breitel, William Cahn, John English, Kenneth Feinberg, Jack Fuchsberg, Stanley Fuld, Walter Gellhorn, Julius Goebel, Seymour Halpern, Paul Hays, Whitman Knapp, Harold Korn, Eugene Nickerson, Anthony Travia, and Herbert Wechsler

Subjects

• Civil procedure--United States.
• Columbia University. School of Law--Faculty--Interviews.
• Evidence (Law)--United States.
• Grele, Ronald J., interviewer.--http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/ivr
• Interviews.
• Judges--New York (State)--Interviews.
• Judicial process--United States.
• Justice, Administration of--United States.
• Oral histories.
• Torts--United States.
• United States. District Court (New York : Eastern District)
• Weinstein, Jack B.--Interviews.

Access Conditions

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