 Contact CCT
 Advertise with CCT |
 University  College  Alumni Home |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
|
AROUND THE QUADSMukasey Confirmed as Attorney General
Colleague Lev Dassin says U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey ’63 is an excellent teacher of life lessons. 
Michael B. Mukasey ’63 was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on November 8, becoming the 81st Attorney General of the United States. Mukasey served for 18 years as a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, including six years as chief judge. He has received several awards, most notably the Learned Hand Medal, which is presented annually by the Federal Bar Council to an outstanding member of the legal profession who has demonstrated excellence in federal jurisprudence. Mukasey has taught “Trial Practice” as a lecturer-in-law at the Law School every spring since 1993. “Judge Mukasey is dedicated to teaching students not only the art of trial practice, but to be scrupulously honest about the facts and the law,” said Lev Dassin, chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, who has co-taught “Trial Practice” with Mukasey since 1999. John Ponyicsanyi ’08L, who took Mukasey’s course last spring, said he “gave us a sense of one’s duties not only to your client, but to the other side and to the court. Judge Mukasey doesn’t teach to be on the stage or to tell war stories. I think he sees it as public service. My impression is that he wants to train future lawyers in order to sharpen the practice of law.” In private practice from 1967–72 before becoming a judge, Mukasey has represented some of New York’s most famous people, such as lawyer Roy M. Cohn and socialite Claus von Bulow, and its powerful institutions, including The Daily News and The Wall Street Journal. Born in the Bronx on July 28, 1941, Mukasey graduated in 1959 from the Ramaz School and earned a law degree at Yale in 1967. He was in private practice when he joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan as a prosecutor. Mukasey returned to private practice in 1976 at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler and in 1987 was nominated to the bench in the Federal District Court in Manhattan by President Reagan. He had retired from the bench and was in private practice in Manhattan when he was nominated by President Bush on September 17 to succeed Alberto Gonzales as attorney general. Alex Sachare '71
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
