Publisher's Synopsis
Now in paperback, with new material by the author on his life and on the confirmation hearings for the new justice to the Supreme Court. Alan Dershowitz, America's most prominent legal mind and the #1 bestselling author of Chutzpah and The Best Defense, recounts his legal autobiography, describing how he came to the law, as well as the cases that have changed American jurisprudence over the past 50 years, most of which he has personally been involved in. Alan Dershowitz, author of such acclaimed bestsellers as Chutzpah, The Best Defense, and Reversal of Fortune, for the first time recounts his legal autobiography, describing his struggles academically while growing up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn; his successes at Yale; clerking for Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg; and his appointment to full professor at Harvard at age 28, the youngest in the school's history. Dershowitz went on to work on many of the most celebrated cases in the land, from appealing (successfully) Claus Von Bulow's conviction for the murder of his wife to the O.J. Simpson trial, to defending Mike Tyson, Leona Helmsley, Patty Hearst, and countless others. He is currently part of the legal team advising Julian Assange. In Taking the Stand, Dershowitz reveals the evolution of his own thinking on such fundamental issues as censorship and the First Amendment, civil rights, abortion, homicide, and the increasing role that science plays in a legal defence.
