Clarence Darrow of Brooklyn

Riddle: Who has defended more civil liberties cases before the U.S. Supreme Court than any other lawyer and smiles like a Jewish grandmother?

Leonard B. Boudin is the name. And the man's legal defense record is an impressive march through American social history; starting with labor leaders in the thirties, to alleged Russian spies in the forties, past anti-McCarthyites in the fifties, and onto Spock, Berrigan, and Ellsberg in the last decades.

Yet outside of legal circles and an occasional mention somewhere in a New York Times article, you don't run into the name very often.

Boudin's appearance certainly doesn't overwhelm anybody. He's on the small side, and heavy bags under his eyes make him look tired. His gray-white hair, once blond, is short but disheveled, and his simple sports coat and sweater are more the dress of a recluse academic than a senior law partner with a 10-room office in downtown New York.

And let us not forget the Jewish grandmother in Boudin. The second he opens his mouth he betrays his Brooklyn upbringing. If you catch him in a relaxed social setting you may run into a trail of babble which is not the least bit blemished by transitional ideas: "I got into this cab today, and the cab driver has a December 3rd Newsweek--that's all right but it would have been nicer if it were December 10...I read papers, magazines, deep books, anything I can get my hands on. (What deep books, Mr. Boudin?) Well, I never read a deep book. But I am writing a novel, though I still haven't written a word--it's all in my head."

There's a lot in that Boudin head, accumulated from a legal career that has touched five decades. The son of a real estate lawyer, Boudin attended the City College of New York and graduated from St. John's Law School where he was an unexceptional B student. His uncle, a well-known constitutional lawyer in the '30s, took him into the firm, starting Boudin on union cases.

Boudin feels his work in the passport cases of the fifties gave him his strong civil liberties orientation. During these years the government refused passports to individuals who wouldn't cooperate with Congressional committees. The key issue was whether travel was a right or a privilege. After eight years of litigation, in a case argued before the Supreme Court, Boudin secured the right of the individual to travel.

"People call me radical, though I don't know why," he says. "I'm really not political. In fact I have a basic cynicism for any political line because I don't know where the truth is."

While he claims not to be a political person, throughout his long career he has associated with people on the left end of America's political spectrum.

In the 1940s he joined the National Lawyer's Guild, instead of the American Bar Association, which opposed much of the New Deal legislation at the time. While many of the lawyers left the Guild for fear of being branded communist, Boudin stayed on. And he admits his decision to drop Chile as a client after the military coup this fall was more than just a coincidence.

The man drives himself. He often will spend 18 hours a day working. And he plays hard. Without any prompting he'll tell you how good he is in his weekly tennis matches.

Today Boudin is probably most widely known for his defense of Ellsberg. As he discusses the trial you get a peek into the many facets of the man's personality. There is Boudin the social wit: "Everyone makes leaks when they want to--Kissinger leaks, Ehrlichman leaks, the Justice Department leaks, government clerks leak, but when Ellsberg leaks everyone makes a big deal." As he finishes, he slowly breaks into a smile--deadpan is not one of his fortes.

And there is Boudin the careful attorney. When asked about a recent Harper's article which paints an unflattering picture of Ellsberg, his face clouds. "I'd never criticize a client...there are things I don't like about Ellsberg and there are undoubtably things he doesn't like about me. There are certain idiosvncracies he has, but he's a hero, and that's part of a person of heroic stature."

"Me? I'm too old to have heroes. But if I had to pick one it would be Clarence Darrow--he was above politics.

"I like to defend people against the government. It's been said before, but if there's one thing this country is great for it's respect for individual rights."

For socially conscious law students, Boudin is himself something of a hero--a rare example of an individual who supports himself while doing civil liberties work. But he makes no pretenses when questioned about how he can do it:

"People ask me how I can justify sending my clients all over the country to collect for their defense. A couple of years back Kunstler came to Harvard, and told students they should do civil liberties work for nothing. But he's the exception--he can afford to do this because he does the lecture route. Most people can't, and I don't want to do this."

"I have a serious doubt about whether I'm ever paid enough for my services," he says. "There are untold costs in a case like Ellsberg's. You leave the office for a year to live in L.A., you often work 18 hours a day, and you can't build up a practice in the meantime. But the real issue is not the Spocks or Ellsbergs, it's the poor who have to rely on civil liberties groups who are seriously overburdened. The Ellsbergs and Berrigans are able to get lawyers."

"When they ask I tell concerned law students to build a practice that is at least half commercial."

Boudin maintains all his activity despite health problems. Since a heart attack in 1967 he has been dependent on a pacemaker. And he has suffered from cataracts which necessitated two eye operations.

But there is another basic nonphysical problem that disturbs him. His daughter Kathy has been a fugitive from the law since 1970, when she was charged in connection with an explosion in a Greenwich Village factory. Even Boudin's closest friends don't know whether he has seen her since.

When I asked Boudin about his future plans he said he'd like to do some teaching, and that he originally wanted to be an English professor. He enjoyed his year at the Law School in 1971, and is looking forward to a semester as a visiting professor at Yale Law School this spring.

It's easy to see that Boudin likes the attention he gets when he comes to an academic community like Harvard. He is surrounded by people who feel they are removed from the real world, and who love to hear him talk about things that go on behind the scenes, that they can't read in The New York Times.

Enticed by students at a Dunster open house, he touches on the attraction of this environment in his Brooklynese: "I hate living in New York...I love Cambridge...I'd like to come here to ride a bicycle...It would be great to be the master of Dunster House sometime..."

But somehow you have to doubt it. It's very hard to visualize Boudin in one place for more than a couple of hours, let alone...