Taking Liberties: A Decade of Hard Cases, Bad Laws, and Bum Raps

by Alan M. Dershowitz

The noted Harvard scholar presents provocative commentary on tough legal issues drawn from real cases, including vigilantism vs. self-defense, the rights of the press, and considering Supreme Court nominees

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Law

332 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1988

About the author

Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He is known for his career as an attorney in several high-profile law cases and commentary on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

He has spent most of his career at Harvard, where, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor in its history, until Noam Elkies took the record. Dershowitz still holds the record as the youngest person to become a professor of law there.

As a criminal appellate lawyer, Dershowitz has won thirteen out of the fifteen murder and attempted murder cases he has handled. He successfully argued to overturn the conviction of Claus von Bülow for the attempted murder of Bülow's wife, Sunny. Dershowitz was the appellate advisor for the defense in the criminal trial of O.J. Simpson for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.