Remembering Leonard Garment ’49, a Storytelling Professor With an Illustrious Career
The storied career of Adjunct Professor Leonard Garment ’49 (pictured) was an inspiration to his former student Gavin Goldstein ’07.
By Gavin Goldstein ’07
As detailed in his memoir Crazy Rhythm, people often asked the late Brooklyn Law School Adjunct Professor Leonard Garment ’49 how “a birthright Democrat and life-long liberal, could become and remain not only a close professional colleague of Richard Nixon, but his friend?” Often, his response was a mere shrug. This relaxed and down-to-earth response encompasses my memories of my former professor.
Garment, who died on July 13, 2013, would have celebrated his 101st birthday this past Sunday. The son of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in Europe, he grew up in Brooklyn and was a lifelong lover of jazz and a clarinetist who worked with musical legends including Billie Holiday and Woody Herman. After a stint in the U.S. Army, he graduated Brooklyn Law School as a member of the class of 1949.
While studying at Brooklyn Law School, Garment was editor-in-chief of the Brooklyn Law Review and led a team to beat Harvard in a precursor to the first national moot court competition. Garment began his law career with the Wall Street law firm that became Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie & Alexander. He headed the firm's litigation department, where he met and helped tutor President Richard Nixon in appellate argument.
From there, Garment played a key role in organizing Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign and became a special adviser to the president focusing on civil and human rights, Native American affairs, volunteerism, and the National Endowment for the Arts. During the Watergate scandal, Garment acted as counsel to the president. Many people believed Garment was the infamous “Deep Throat” source for Washington Post reporters who uncovered the scandal, Bob Woodward and Carl Berstein, prompting Garment to write a book in 2000, titled, In Search of Deep Throat: The Greatest Political Mystery of Our Time, refuting the theory. (The newspaper's real source came forward in 2005).
After Nixon’s resignation, Garment served as assistant to President Gerald Ford and representative to the United Nations in the U.N. General Assembly’s 3rd Committee (Human Rights) where he was personal friends with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.
While attending Brooklyn Law School, I had the privilege of taking Garment’s class “Law, Politics, and Personality.” It was an intimate class where he told us stories about his life and what it was like working in the White House. He loved teaching but also hearing our thoughts and engaging us in conversation. At the end of the course, he invited us to his home to meet his wife and daughter. We occasionally kept in touch, and I excitedly called him after I had just seen former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan speak and heard him tell the story of how Garment was the reason he started working in government. Garment’s reaction over the telephone when he responded, likely with a shrug, was “Yeah, well that’s how it happened.”
He was a wonderful professor, down-to-earth, and cared for people. Although he passed away more than a decade ago, I think of him often as I interact with my students as a professor of management at Touro University’s Graduate School of Business.
Gavin Goldstein ’07 is a full-time assistant professor at Touro University’s Graduate School of Business where he teaches management, business, and law classes, and is the coordinator for student entrepreneurship and business. In addition to his J.D., he earned a Ph.D. in business management, and researches and writes extensively on corporate social responsibility. He also published a textbook: Business Law Textbook - Modern Resources for Students | Business Law.
Editor’s note: If you have a story of a Brooklyn Law School professor that you’d like to share, please send an email to communications@brooklaw.edu with the subject line Memorable Professor.