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This week’s podcast guest is Joseph Margulies, an accomplished civil rights litigator, author of three books and many online articles, and Cornell University professor. Joe was counsel of record in Supreme Court litigation that established the right of Guantanamo inmates and Americans detained abroad by American forces to challenge their detentions. He describes one of his current clients as having been “imprisoned and tortured in CIA black sites.”

Joe and Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz graduated from their respective law schools a year apart. Joe's father, Irv, was a great lawyer who was a key mentor to Jon when the litigation partner at Jon's first law firm. Detours about Irv in this interview include his sharp mind, and Joe's and Irv's commonality about the importance of strong persuasive writing skills for litigators. Jon witnessed Irv’s taking even complex issues and getting right to the heart of the persuasive matter, with appropriate word imagery and emphasis. Irv's persona shines through in his combat veteran oral history.

Starting with doing indigent criminal defense, Joe eventually shifted from mainly wanting to fight in court, to adopting a more client-focused approach that seeks to know his clients as people, as well as what happened in their life path that preceded their arrest and prosecution. That approach develops trust between a lawyer and client that cannot be substituted any other way, and enables the lawyer to persuasively advocate for their clients all the better.  

Joe aptly says on his main professional webpage: “If history and science teach us anything, it is that any of us can do monstrous things, and if all of us can be monstrous, then none of us are monsters, which is why I do not believe in the Other, that mythical creature we are so quick to find and eager to cast out.”

Asked about approaches to beating the prosecution, Joe admits that he has suffered defeats (as do all criminal defense lawyers), and focuses on the importance for a criminal defense lawyer to sharpen their writing skills, process, and re-writing. For writing excellence, Joe especially likes George Orwell, and addresses his essays, including “Politics and the English Language”.

This episode is also available on YouTube and Apple podcasts. 

This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).

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