Monday, June 28, 2010

Martin D. Ginsburg, Esq. -- In Memoriam

3 comments:

  1. Martin David Ginsburg (June 10, 1932 – June 27, 2010) was an internationally renowned taxation law expert. He was Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. He was of counsel to the firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson.

    Ginsburg was born to Morris and Evelyn (Bayer) Ginsburg and grew up on Long Island. His father was a department store executive. He earned an A.B. from Cornell University (1953) and a J.D. (magna cum laude) from Harvard Law School (1958). He was a star on Cornell's golf team. He finished a year at law school, married Ruth Joan Bader (after she finished at Cornell), and was drafted (1954). He was stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He exploited his undergraduate training in chemistry, to learn to cook—his new bride's limited culinary skills encouraged it. He returned to law school and his wife entered HLS (1956).

    After law school, he joined Weil, Gotshal & Manges (1958). He was admitted to the bar in New York (1959) and District of Columbia (1980).

    He taught at New York University Law School (1960s), and was a visiting professor Stanford Law School (1977–1978), Harvard Law School (1985–1986), University of Chicago Law School (1989–1990), and at NYU (1992–1993). He was a tenured professor at Columbia Law School (Beekman Professor of Law) (1979–1980), and at Georgetown (1980–).

    Ginsburg's firm represented H. Ross Perot in a business matter, and the two men became friends (1971). After President Jimmy Carter nominated his wife to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (1980), Ginsburg reached out to Perot and other influential friends to assure her Senate confirmation. Ginsburg resolved complex tax questions that threatened General Motors's acquisition (1984) of Perot's Electronic Data Systems. Perot endowed (1986) the Martin Ginsburg chair in taxation at Georgetown Law Center, but Ginsburg has yet to fill that appointment.

    Ginsburg married future Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader June 23, 1954.

    Once each term, he cooked a meal for his wife's clerks.

    "Would you like something to drink?"

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  2. The soloists in the video are Jascha Heifetz on violin, Gregor Piatigorsky on cello, and Arthur Rubinstein on piano -- three Jewish boys who made it big time in the world of classical music!

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  3. I first heard this Mendelssohn trio played at the memorial service for Vice-President Hubert Humphrey held in the U.S. Capitol rotunda in 1977. I believe Isaac Stern played the violin.

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