Michael Mukasey

His father was born near Baranavichy in Belarus (then in the Russian Empire) and emigrated to the U.S. in 1921.

Michael Bernard Mukasey (born July 28, 1941) is an American lawyer and jurist who served as the 81st Attorney General of the United States from 2007 to 2009 and as a U.S. district judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from 1987 to 2006.

Mukasey graduated from Columbia University with a degree in history and received a Bachelor of Laws from Yale Law School.

He worked in private practice for two decades and spent four years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Mukasey was born on July 28, 1941, in New York City.

Mukasey graduated in 1959 from the Ramaz School, an independent (formerly boys' and now co-educational) Modern Orthodox Jewish prep school in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City.

His wife, Susan, was later a teacher and headmistress of the lower school at Ramaz, and both of their children (Marc and Jessica) attended the school.

After high school, Mukasey studied history at Columbia University, where he was the editorials editor of the Columbia Daily Spectator and graduated in 1963 with a Bachelor of Arts.

Mukasey then attended Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal.

He graduated in 1967 with a Bachelor of Laws.

Mukasey practiced law for 20 years in New York City, serving for four years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York in which he worked with Rudolph Giuliani.

From 1967 to 1972, he was an associate with the law firm of Webster Sheffield Fleischmann Hitchcock & Brookfield, later known as Webster & Sheffield.

In 1976, he joined the New York law firm of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, to which he returned after retirement from the U.S. District Court.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Mukasey to a judgeship on the Southern District of New York.

On July 27, 1987, Mukasey was nominated to be a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan by President Ronald Reagan, to a seat vacated by Abraham David Sofaer.

Mukasey was confirmed by the United States Senate on November 6, 1987, and received his commission on November 9, 1987; he took the bench in 1988.

Mukasey began teaching at Columbia Law School in the spring of 1993 and has taught there every spring semester since.

Mukasey's adopted son, Marc L. Mukasey, is a founding partner of Mukasey Frenchman LLP, a small law firm in New York City.

The Mukaseys have a professional relationship with Rudy Giuliani; Mukasey and son were also justice advisers to Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign.

During his service on the bench, Mukasey presided over the criminal prosecution of Omar Abdel Rahman and El Sayyid Nosair, whom he sentenced to life in prison for a plot to blow up the United Nations and other Manhattan landmarks uncovered during an investigation into the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

During that case, Mukasey spoke out against leaks by law enforcement officials regarding the facts of the case allegedly aimed at prejudicing potential jurors against the defendants.

During that case, Mukasey also refused to recuse himself, warning that the demand for his recusal would "disqualify not only an obscure district judge such as the author of this opinion, but also Justices Brandeis and Frankfurter ... each having been both a Jew and a Zionist."

Mukasey also presided over the trial of Jose Padilla, ruling that the U.S. citizen and alleged terrorist could be held as an enemy combatant but was entitled to see his lawyers.

Mukasey also was the judge in the litigation between developer Larry Silverstein and several insurance companies arising from the destruction of the World Trade Center.

Mukasey administered the oath of office to Mayor-elect Giuliani in 1994 and 1998.

He became the Chief Judge in 2000 and served until his retirement in 2006.

Mukasey was nominated to be Attorney General by President George W. Bush following the resignation of Alberto Gonzales.

Mukasey was the second Jewish U.S. Attorney General.

Mukasey left office after Bush's term as president ended.

He is currently of counsel at the international law firm Debevoise & Plimpton.

Mukasey, pursuant to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), is registered as working on behalf of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

He served in that position for 18 years, including tenure as Chief Judge from March 2000 through July 2006.

In a 2003 suit, he issued a preliminary injunction preventing the Motion Picture Association of America from enforcing its ban against the distribution of screener copies of films during awards season, ruling that the ban was likely an unlawful restraint of trade unfair to independent filmmakers.

In June 2003, Democratic New York Senator Charles Schumer submitted Mukasey's name, along with four other Republicans or Republican appointees, as a suggestion for Bush to consider for nomination to the Supreme Court.

On October 14, 2004, citing U.S. Supreme Court precedent, Mukasey reversed his September 2002 decision and dismissed a case in which plaintiffs in twenty consolidated actions sued the Italian insurance company Generali S.p.A. (Generali), seeking damages for nonpayment of insurance proceeds to beneficiaries of policies purchased by Holocaust victims before the end of World War II.

In so ruling, Mukasey gave deference to "a federal executive branch policy favoring voluntary resolution of Holocaust-era insurance claims."

Although Article III of the U.S. Constitution entitles federal judges to hold their appointments for life, in June 2006 Mukasey announced that he would retire as a judge and return to private practice at the end of the summer.

On August 1, 2006, he was succeeded as Chief Judge of the Southern District by Judge Kimba Wood, entering senior status on the same day.

Mukasey's retirement took effect on September 9, 2006.

On September 12, 2006, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler announced that Mukasey had rejoined the firm as a partner.