Alan Dershowitz wasn’t the best student growing up. He joked that below his high school yearbook photo it said, “Mouth of Webster, head of clay.”
His high school principal said he wasn’t smart enough to become a rabbi, so he became a lawyer.
UF President Bernie Machen interviewed Dershowitz, a renowned lawyer and Harvard professor, in front of an audience of about 300 at the Phillips Center on Wednesday night.
Known for his opinions about the Middle East, Dershowitz spoke about issues affecting the area along with the revolutions in northern Africa. But he emphasized there is no way to predict what will happen.
He talked about his time as a lawyer, definding a range of people from Deep Throat to O.J. Simpson, and now as a part of Julian Assange’s legal team.
“For me, WikiLeaks is the Pentagon Papers of the 21st century.”
Though he never has met Assange, he said he has corresponded with him via e-mail and will meet him in two weeks in London.
“I’ve always felt the need to defend the underdog,” Dershowitz said.
While he has been criticized for working on the WikiLeaks case, nothing has been as harsh as the judgments passed on his involvement with the O.J. Simpson case.
“My mother called it the ‘oy vey O.J. case,’” he said.
But his mother wasn’t the only one furious with him for taking the case. He said people spit at him, wrote nasty articles about him and even sent his mother death threats.
Even with all the things he’s had to deal with as a lawyer, he encouraged students who want to be lawyers to find a niche they love and to be passionate about their work.
He said that while he loves the weekends, he also loves to say “Thank God it’s Monday” because he gets to go back to work.
“Don’t let anybody steal that passion from you,” he said.
Accent Speakers Bureau Chairman Zachary Goldstein said Accent contributed $15,000 to pay for Dershowitz’s visit, but it was a collaborative effort with UF Hillel and Jewish Awareness Month. He did not know the amounts the other groups contributed.
