Remembering Former D.C. Bar President Robert Weinberg
February 26, 2026
Courtesy of University of Virginia School of Law
The D.C. Bar is paying tribute to Robert Lester Weinberg, president of the Bar from 1978 to 1979, who died of natural causes on February 19 at his home in Arlington, Virginia. He was 94.
Weinberg was a founding partner of Williams & Connolly LLP, adjunct professor at the George Washington University Law School, and lecturer at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he taught a biweekly seminar on criminal procedure for more than half a century.
In 1960 Weinberg joined the Law Offices of Edward Bennett Williams and seven years later became a founding partner of Williams & Connolly. There, he worked for more than three decades as a civil and criminal litigator with a focus on constitutional protections for civil rights and pro bono representation. Weinberg retired from law practice in 1996.
“Bob was one of the great leaders in the early days of the District of Columbia Bar and continued to provide inspiration for later generations of Bar officers and volunteers. His years of service as one of the Bar's representatives in the ABA House of Delegates, where I overlapped with him, assured that the ABA would have a forward-looking national perspective as it considered important issues of legal policy,” said Philip Allen Lacovara, president of the Bar from 1988 to 1989. “His commitment to the concept of pro bono service helped place the profession on the path of taking time out of regular practice to provide service to those persons and organizations who otherwise would lack counsel. With his quiet passion, he represented the best of our profession.”
Among Weinberg’s high-profile cases was the precedent-setting Gaither v. United States, in which he served as court-appointed counsel for two men accused of grand larceny and successfully argued that prosecutors violated the defendants’ Fifth Amendment right by failing to present the full, completed indictment to the grand jury. Weinberg was also successful in getting two of his clients off death row.
In addition to serving as D.C. Bar president, Weinberg was also president of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia (BADC) from 1994 to 1995 and the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (AAJLJ) in 2006.
Weinberg’s accomplishments in the legal profession received several noteworthy recognitions, including the 1996 Servant of Justice Award from Legal Aid DC, the 2000 Washington Lawyer of the Year Award from BADC, and the 2009 Pursuit of Justice Award from AAJLJ.
Judge Paul L. Friedman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia remembers Weinberg’s presidential term as singular. Friedman was D.C. Bar president from 1986 to 1987 and served on the D.C. Bar Board of Governors in 1978.
“When I was first elected to the Board of Governors, Lou Oberdorfer was president and Bob Weinberg president-elect,” Friedman recalled. “When President Carter appointed Lou to the District Court, Lou resigned as president of the Bar. So, Bob (unique among all of us) served as president for a year-and-a-half. I had the privilege and pleasure of seeing him in action as the Board’s [and Bar's] leader during that time. He was a great spokesman for our profession, the rule of law, pro bono, and justice for all. He will be greatly missed.”
In an interview with the D.C. Bar, Weinberg’s son Jeremy said he had “always admired [his] father’s commitment to justice and in doing the right thing.”
“I admired his commitment to the cases he worked on. He worked very hard at the matters at hand,” said Jeremy Weinberg, a general attorney at the U.S. Department of State.
Outside of work, Weinberg was involved in local politics. He was a social liberal who advocated equitable civil justice for all citizens. He ran as a Democratic congressional candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Virginia’s 10th District in 1988 and 1996.
Weinberg was born in New York City on May 23, 1931, to Abraham and Beatrice Weinberg. While growing up in Greenwich Village, he attended the Little Red School House and then Stuyvesant High School, where he graduated as valedictorian in 1949. Afterward, he attended Yale College, where he earned his bachelor of arts degree in history in 1953 and served as president of the Yale Political Union. He continued his education as a Fulbright Scholar at the London School of Economics (LSE), earning a doctorate degree.
While studying in London, Weinberg met his future wife, Wendy, who was an undergraduate at LSE. They married in 1956. Weinberg was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he served from 1957 to 1958. Later, he and his wife attended Yale Law School, both earning their juris doctor degrees in 1960.
According to Jeremy Weinberg, his mother was more of a fan of Washington, D.C., than his father was. She convinced her husband to relocate to the District after graduating from Yale, arguing that it was a better place for both of them to pursue their legal careers. “He had prospects of working with the U.S. Department of Justice, but he landed at the Law Offices of Edward Bennett Williams in 1960,” Jeremy Weinberg said.
Weinberg is survived by his wife, Patricia Wendy Weinberg; his children, Susan, David, and Jeremy; and four grandchildren.
