The Happy Legal Life of Charles Nesson

It seemed perfectly natural for Charles. Nesson '60 to become a lawyer; his mother, father and aunt were lawyers, and, he says now, "coming from a family of lawyers I had decided early that I wanted to become one too. I really couldn't think of anything else I wanted to be."

Nesson, now a friendly and somewhat shy professor of Law, is best known today for his defense of Daniel Ellsberg '52 in the Pentagon Papers trial of 1971 and 1972, in which Ellsberg's case was dismissed because of the burglary of Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office by E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy.

He also recently finished working with defense attorney William P. Homans Jr. '41 on the appeal for Dr. Kenneth Edelin's man-slaughter conviction for an abortion the doctor performed last year. The appeal will be argued this month. Nesson is now representing Morton Halperin, a former member of the National Security Staff, in a lawsuit against Secretary of State Henry Kissinger '50 on wiretapping charges, and is also representing filmmaker Emile de Antonio, who is making a movie about the Weather Underground, in lawsuits against the FBI and CIA on charges of invasion of privacy.

The energy for such demanding undertakings is not readily apparent in Nesson. He has a quiet, unassuming warm manner, but his enthusiasm surfaces when he immerses himself in his work.

In a seminar at the Law School Nesson observes a mock courtroom trial, looking fascinated. As the student prosecutor catches a witness in an apparent contradiction, Nesson smiles and nods his head approvingly, as if he has just witnessed a dancer executing a difficult pirouette.

Maintaining a positive attitude towards law practice seems to be no problem for Nesson. Responding to the common charge that Harvard Law School is geared towards preparation for corporate law and neglects law theory too much, Nesson says, "Law is a business. It's dictated by the jobs available, and there is demand for corporate lawyers. Unfortunately, corporate law doesn't carry a 'do-good' aspect like some other fields of law."

It seems as though Nesson's life was planned from the beginning, but he admits there are a few things he would do differently if he could live his life over again.

"I wouldn't have goofed off so much while I was at college for one thing," Nesson says. He had enough credits to graduate from Harvard in three years, but after being denied admission to the Law School he decided to complete his fourth year, after which he was accepted. During his stay at law school Nesson was number one in his class all three years and graduated summa.

"There wasn't much of a community as far as Harvard and Radcliffe were concerned when I was there," Nesson says. "I never had much to do with Radcliffe; I preferred Wellesley. But then, as now, I think the most important thing for the undergraduate here to do is to know what he or she wants, and that requires a lot of introspection."

In 1964, the year after law school, Nesson was awarded a Sheldon traveling fellowship for study in Europe. What did he study? "Skiing."

The following year Nesson spent as a clerk for Justice John Harlan of the Supreme Court, after which he joined the Justice Department as special assistant to John Doar in the Civil Rights Division.

"If I could live my life over that's another thing I would have changed: I wouldn't have left the Justice Department when I did," says Nesson.

In 1966, when Stokely Carmichael staged his Mississippi March from Alabama, Doar and Nesson were working in Lowndes County there, known as "Bloody Lowndes." Doar and Nesson brought about the first convictions of Ku Klux Klan members before an all-white jury for violence against black citizens.

Before leaving the Justice Department, Nesson also worked on the Alabama reapportionment cases, which involved stopping attempts to redraw boundary lines of cities so as to exclude the homes of most black residents, thus making them ineligible in city elections.

"It was very exciting work, and I wouldn't have left had I not received an offer to teach here," says Nesson, but he is not dissatisfied with his decision to teach here.

Although he is devoted to his work, Nesson has had opportunities to work on other issues drawing national attention. In 1970 he worked on the appeal of contempt citations in the Chicago Seven cases, and was also successful in acquiring a parole for Daniel Berrigan, who had been imprisoned for burning draft records at Catonsville, Md.

Shortly after the dismissal of the Ellsberg case, attorneys representing former vice-president Spiro T. Agnew asked Nesson for copies of motions he had filed in an attempt to bar a Boston grand jury from investigating the leaking of the Pentagon papers to the press, in order to bar a Baltimore grand jury investigation of Agnew's financial affairs.

Being so active would seemingly leave little time for his personal life, and Nesson concedes that his time is, for the most part, taken.

"My wife Fern believes I have a responsibility to her as much as to clients," Nesson says, and in 1974 Nesson took a leave to join his wife working as a public defender on the Massachusetts Defenders' Committee.

Nesson also recently procured a two-year grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (for an amount he will not reveal) to make ten films for teaching evidence to lawyers, which will involve filming prominent lawyers in their trials, some to be done in the Boston area and some not.

But Nesson, probably because of his modest manner, remains unknown to many undergraduates and even law students here. The defender of Ellsberg and Edelin, the prosecutor of the Ku Klux Klan, the battler against wiretapping plays it quiet and close to his chest. "I prefer," he says, "to remain out of the public eye."