Alan Dershowitz writes memoir, calls his fame 'a complete accident'
Image from Random House.
Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz has written a new memoir, and his fact checker apparently left no stone unturned.
Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam got a prepublication copy of the book, Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law, and noticed that a note, apparently written by the fact checker, had not been removed.
The note followed Dershowitz’s assertion that he has been called “the winningest appellate criminal defense lawyer in history.” The fact checker responded: “ALAN: I COULD NOT FIND A SOURCE FOR THIS. DO YOU REMEMBER WHO CALLED YOU THAT?”
The book is being released as Dershowitz teaches his last semester of classes at Harvard Law, according to the Harvard Gazette. He has taught there since 1964, and the law school will be hosting a tribute on Monday.
Dershowitz told the Harvard Gazette he didn’t set out to be a public persona. “I never had a strategy about my life,” Dershowitz told the Gazette. “I didn’t have enough information to have a strategy. I’m the first person in my family to go to college. I had no family mentors.
“One day The New York Times called and said: ‘Would you like to write a book review?’ Sure! I don’t know why they called me. Then, once I was in The New York Times, Larry King would call me and the Today show would call me. So my name became associated with public explanations of the law, but it was a complete accident. My whole life has been a complete accident.”
Hat tip to Overlawyered, which links to the Boston Globe article.
