Washington Lawyer March/April 2026
By David Epstein
Steve Jobs famously said, “We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise, why else even be here?” I believe that I have left toeprints.
At 90 years of age, in my mind I am a near legend of the District of Columbia Bar, licensed to practice law starting in 1962. My unsolicited advice as a person of mature years: Get involved in all aspects of the legal profession.
The D.C. Bar was central to my legal career. I have the unique and perhaps unbeatable distinction that four separate Nominations Committees selected me as a candidate for Bar president in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. I never was elected.
I would argue that, by losing, I may have helped the careers of those who won, including John H. Pickering (1979–1980), a legendary lawyer and name partner at a major law firm now called Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP; James Robertson (1991–1992), who thereafter became a federal judge; and Carolyn B. Lamm (1997–1998), who later was president of the American Bar Association. The other time I lost was a bit more complicated with four nominees on the ballot. No one had a majority vote. James J. Bierbower (1981–1982) wanted to limit the Bar’s Board of Governors from engaging in a broad range of issues outside the legal profession. These limitations were eventually imposed.
During my career, I served on the first Disciplinary Board — now the Board on Professional Responsibility — establishing traditions for reviewing recommendations of the hearing committees deciding on discipline. I also served as treasurer of the D.C. Bar, member of the D.C. Bar Legal Ethics Committee, and chair of the award-winning 1987 D.C. Bar Committee on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution. For Washington Lawyer I authored an article on the Constitution, noting a lesser known portion that is of great importance — Article I, Section 9: “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever from any King, Prince or foreign State.”
I also created the long-running Stuart Stiller Writing Competition, where members of the Bar annually submitted original literary works for publication in this magazine. An enjoyable moment of the year was calling the winning lawyer and hearing expressions of joy. The winner of the first year of the competition told me that one of his parents was not impressed because he was only competing against lawyers.
Even a small contribution is important. For the D.C. Bar Legal Ethics Committee, I established that our published opinions should have a summary at the outset — minor perhaps, but not when searching for an opinion dealing with a specific point in the pre-computer era.
I was the sole Bar member who first gathered documentation and raised successful opposition to the reappointment of a judge who had repeatedly failed to show judicial competence. I was stunned when I later learned that based on the fact of his prior status, he nonetheless was appointed by the chief judge to continue adjudicating cases on a limited basis.
One of my major contributions may seem counterintuitive and not in the best interests of the Bar: my opposition to mandatory continuing legal education. In my view, those favoring mandatory CLE could only rely on a feeling that such a requirement would lift the quality of those lawyers who were not sufficiently motivated to improve their own skills. There was no evidence of what percentage of Bar members required improvement, nor that mandatory CLE for all lawyers had achieved a positive impact in any of the jurisdictions requiring it.
I certainly favored continuing legal education. I taught courses and voluntarily took CLE classes. However, I co-led the effort that resulted in an overwhelming referendum vote rejecting a proposal calling for the establishment of mandatory continuing legal education in the District. I was a member of other bars and saw that fulfilling a requirement could mean nothing more than sitting idly at a course, in person or on the internet, while learning nothing. A conscientious lawyer takes courses when needed. To require lawyers to meet annual hours of CLE would not raise the behavior of the small percentage of lawyers who might be indifferent to improving their skills. The cost of a CLE regimen with annual requirements for all lawyers totaled millions of dollars. Our arguments were valid and compelling then. I offer no opinion on the circumstances of today.
The Choices that Defined My Journey
Was I destined to become a lawyer? I can’t answer the question. No one in my family was a lawyer. My brother was a physician. I was an American history major on the pre-med track in college. I applied to and was accepted by three medical schools. The day before I was to begin classes at one of the schools, I informed a dean that I would not attend.
Law school was a respectable alternative, not a compelling vision. Later, I rationalized that I just enjoyed the competitive challenge of getting into medical school, just as I later did in the adversarial world of the courtroom. That trait was the basis for the best compliment I ever received. It was during my military service. After completing the swimming test, I was told by the grader, “I have never seen so little talent and so much determination.”
My lifelong friend, Daniel Rezneck (later D.C. Bar president, 1975–1976), suggested in 1962 that I should seek to join the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. As a lawyer in my mid-20s, it was heady to stand up in a courtroom and say, “I represent the United States of America.” Another colleague, Paul Renne, said of his position as assistant U.S. attorney for D.C., “This is probably the best job that I will have in my lifetime.” With decades of a career ahead of him, Paul’s statement seemed gloomy. In retrospect, and without minimizing other parts of my long and satisfactory career in the law, Paul’s observation was correct.
To reach fully into all aspects of the law, over time and at the same time, I was an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law, a long-time arbitrator for the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and coauthor of a comparative study on criminal procedure. Also, I worked on studies about the D.C. legal system and on the architectural needs of what is now the H. Carl Moultrie Courthouse of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
One of the points that I often raised over the years was to improve the treatment of witnesses in criminal cases. I offered that having a witness sit around the courthouse, lose wages, and not be reached for testimony dampens the prospects of that witness or others ever becoming involved again. In the pre-cellphone era, I pushed the idea of pagers to advise witnesses to come only when actually needed. In designing the Superior Court building, I noted that the earlier constructed federal courthouse was architecturally indifferent to witnesses and jurors. As a result, the new courthouse included information booths and a more welcoming structure for witnesses and jurors, essential citizens in the judicial process.
One of my adjunct professor assignments was to complete a course taught by Professor Sherman Cohn, who was instructing foreign lawyers in professional responsibility, after he became ill mid-semester. At the time, my lawyer daughter, Dina Epstein, was chief of staff to the dean of graduate programs at Georgetown Law. Her then-toddler, Ilan, was at its day care center. When asked where he went to school, Ilan’s response: “Georgetown law school.” Three generations at Georgetown law school at the same time!
I did not prevail in all of my trials. Occasionally, I made decisions that had negative consequences. I remember these more than the victories. Regrets are inevitable and should not overwhelm, if best efforts were made.
Did I have unfulfilled ambitions? Yes, of course. I wanted to serve as a federal district judge. As president, Jimmy Carter encouraged applications for judgeships, a different approach from other administrations. Out of 90, I got to the top 10 but no further. For other administrations, I just did not know the judicial appointments system.
Witnessing Practice Changes through the Decades
What has changed over the decades? Legal research once required books, manual checks of whether a court opinion still had authority, dictation of briefs to an assistant or device, and the anxious process of making corrections and copies just before the filing deadline. The number of lawyers in a firm, generally in one office location, was small by today’s measure.
I was an early adapter to computers and later to online research. A publication once included a photograph of me holding the new 1984 Apple Macintosh on the sidewalk in front of the United States Supreme Court. It was an oddity at the time yet the herald of a new age. One of the partners in my then-law firm, after seeing my demonstration of the benefits of a computer even in the late 1980s, responded to the effect of, “It is not fit for lawyers to type their own material. That is why we have secretaries.” Within a few years, senior lawyers were learning to type.
The history of the law interested me. When I served as president of the Charles Fahy American Inn of Court, I helped develop a program called “Six Score and Eighteen Years Ago,” comparing how cases were tried by Abraham Lincoln as opposed to present day. We found a case that we believed was handled by his law firm, representing individuals mistreated by a railroad company. Going from the occurrence to the trial to affirmation of the verdict by the Illinois Supreme Court took about 12 months. By comparison, today the case would have been in the courts for multiples of that time — with likely no difference in the result — thanks to discovery, depositions, motions, and transcripts of everything said in the courtroom.
As others, I have taken the oath to defend and protect or support the Constitution of the United States — upon becoming an officer in the United States Coast Guard, on becoming an assistant U.S. attorney, and on joining various courts and state bars. Law is a profession, a livelihood, and a commitment to professional standards, to the rule of law, and to constitutional democracy.
Retired attorney David Epstein lives in Maryland.
