Tales of a trial lawyer who never gives up

And Give Up Showbiz: How Fred Levin Beat Big Tobacco, Avoided Two Murder Prosecutions, Became a Chief of Ghana, Earned Boxing Manager of the Year & Transformed American Law’ by Josh Young

By Dan Bloom

CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan –You  might not know who Fred Levin is but after you finish reading And Give Up Showbiz you will.

Josh Young wrote the book, and when I reached out to him to find out more about Levin and his life as “one of the most interesting and important lawyers of the past 50 years,” as the press release trumpeted, he was kind enough to take some time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions for the San Diego Jewish World.

When I asked Young why he wrote the book, he replied: “I wrote it in hopes that we would sell a million copies, and I’d be as rich as Fred Levin. No, in all seriousness, in addition to the fact that Fred Levin has a colorful and controversial story that make for great drama, I wrote the book to explore the hero-villain aspects of the trial lawyer. The only way the little guy can get any traction against big business when they are wronged in this day and age is through lawyers like Fred. Yet at the same time, those lawyers become wildly wealthy helping the little guy. That seemed like an interesting dilemma to explore.”

A Jewish-American legal pioneer, Levin is the only person inducted into both the Boxing Hall of Fame (as the manager of a championship fighter) and the Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame (for setting record jury awards and being the mastermind behind the landmark $200 billion settlement with Big Tobacco). And that’s just for starters. Josh Young dug deep into Levin’s biography and came up with these gems about a man who once had a law partner in Johnnie Cochran and  Robert Kennedy Jr., who once knew four men who ran for US president,  who considers boxing promoter Don King a good friend, and who was once mistakenly accused of murder (although never charged) and brought up three times before the Florida Bar (but nothing happened). It’s that kind of book.

We learn that Fred Levin grew up up Jewish in a small Bible Belt town in the south, how experiencing anti-Semitism as a teen resulted in Fred joining a Jewish college fraternity and meeting his future wife and how anti-Semitism also resulted in Fred becoming a personal injury lawyer because Jews in the South were not hired into corporate law firms.

Young tells us that anti-Semitism led to Levin’s connection and fight for all minorities, including African-Americans and gay men and women, and to recognition for his actions by the United Nations and the Black Congressional Caucus He also explains what role anti-Semitism played in the statewide uproar that occurred when the University of Florida College of Law was renamed to the Levin College of Law at the University of Florida.

“Fred Levin is a Gatsby-esque figure who has done untold good in life despite being despised by many of the people he has actually helped, and that makes for an interesting world to explore,” author Young told me.

Young, who is alsoJewish, said that one of the most interesting aspects of the book for him was seeing how being Jewish influenced Levin’s success, though not consciously.

“For me, the anti-Semitism I experienced in America — mostly at my first high school–didn’t feel like a motivator at the time. But in retrospect, like Fred, as much as I ignored and didn’t fight back, I can see that when I achieved, that was the greatest payback.”

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Bloom, based in Chiayi City, Taiwan, is an inveterate web surfer who does many e-mail interviews. He may be contacted via dan.bloom@sdjewishworld.com