I final got around to reading a book I must have purchased two decades ago, Family Circle: The Boudins and the Aristocracy of the Left (2003). My path crossed that of Leonard Boudin and his family several times. Leonard was a leading left-wing lawyer from the ‘30s through the ‘70s or until his death in 1989.
Leonard, however, was not a hell-raiser. He maintained his image and reputation as a skilled appellate attorney, and represented many clients who were being prosecuted in part for their left-wing views and activities and several who had been accused of spying for the Soviet Union. He won many cases for his clients, relying on his being known as a brilliant advocate who should not be tagged with the politics, views, or alleged crimes of his clients.
I first met him at the home of Richard Gilbert, a Harvard-trained economist who had been heavily involved in the Democratic Party, having served as an adviser to many presidential candidates. Richard was a respected counselor and in his later years, led an economics project for some years in Pakistan.
He lived in Westport, Conn., with his family in a nice house with a pool. This attracted my father, an outstanding competitive swimmer in his youth, to visit Richard now and then. Incidentally, Richard’s older son, Walter, or Wally, subsequently won the Nobel Prize in Physics, and was a founder of Genentech, the genetics company.
One day when we were visiting, Leonard Boudin came by with his son Michael. I was in high school but along with listening to Leonard discuss two recently-decided Supreme Court cases, one of which he had argued and lost, 5-4, Uphaus v. Wyman, I got to ask him a few questions which he delighted in answering in his inimitable fashion. He also handed out dissents by Justices Black and Brennan. At the same time, my dad was swimming a lap or two, demonstrating his marvelous freestyle in the pool.
Years later, I took a course in my third year at Harvard Law taught by Leonard as Visiting Professor from Practice, a seminar in advanced constitutional law. One of the highlights was travelling to Washington, on my own dime, to watch him argue In re Stolar, a case where a client’s previous political associations was causing a state bar, in Ohio, I believe, to refuse to admit him to its bar.
Leonard won that one, and he enjoyed the limelight. He was assisted in the seminar by two young lions—then—of the Harvard law faculty, Alan Dershowitz and Charles Nesson. They both contributed but like the rest of us were somewhat in awe of Leonard, who peered out at the world through eyeglasses as thick as old green Coke bottles.
Leonard’s daughter, Kathy, had already been convicted of felony murder in the Brinks robbery case in Rockland County, New York, and I realized when reading Susan Braudy’s book that he threw himself into defending Kathy as best he could, drawing on all his skills, experiences, and connections. She still ultimately served 22 years before being paroled.
I wrote my third-year paper for him as my professor, on disqualification of judges for expression of opinion. Seeing him in his office one day, I noted a drawer in a large, four-drawer, metal file cabinet with the label, “Kathy Boudin” on it, I listened as he related to me with his traditional twinkle that he felt sorry for the ancient civil procedure professor whose chambers Leonard was occupying while the procedure professor was on sabbatical: “He won’t realize that because I was here, his phone will be tapped forever by the F.B.I.”
Of the other main characters in the boo, I did get to meet Leonard’s son, Michael, who became, unlike everyone else in his family and clearly in contrast to his sister, became a Republican, Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust in the Reagan Administration, then a judge, and when I met him again, Chief Judge, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston.
He had been generous enough to permit the commission of which I was then Executive Director, the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, to conduct a public hearing in this court’s building. The commission’s chair, Judge Reggie B. Walton, and I went up to his chambers to thank Chief Judge Boudin.
I learned in the Braudy book that Leonard was especially proud of his son although devoted, a much harder task, to his daughter. I mentioned that I had had Leonard as a professor and Michael was wide-eyed and seemed incredibly pleased to hear that I had enjoyed the class and his father as a professor. He died last year and apparently as a traditional Republican, was less than enthralled with the current Administration.
I also met Jean Boudin, a poet and Leonard’s wife. She seemed as a poet to be a bit unused to domesticity: she took the boxes of pizza that had been ordered for this informal supper for Leonard and his class and put them in the oven to warm, boxes and all. She was surprised when they burst into flames, which were extinguished speedily.
It did surprise me that Leonard was a true ladies’ man and had had liaisons with a number of omen over the years, including lawyer who worked for his firm. For some it took some of the sheen off his image, but I always found him a fascinating lawyer and all-around compelling character.
