Lynne Stewart Was Always Ready to Fight the Good Fight

Rutgers law school in Newark was known as The People's Electric Law School, the home of legendary Constitutional lawyer Arthur Kinoy and the "notorious RBG", Ruth Bader Ginsburg. No wonder Lynne Stewart chose it in the decade before me. 

Courage and integrity were placed above serving corporate clients and getting rich.  Serving as a criminal defense attorney, she, along with William Kunstler, gained notoriety for winning the acquittal of Larry Davis who shot at 6 officers breaking down his door, persuading a Bronx jury that corrupt cops coerced him into selling drugs for them.

John Ashcroft used her as a test of the constitutionality of invading attorney-client communications.  He won. She outlived her client who was convicted solely of seditious conspiracy, allegedly directing the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center while blind and preaching in Brooklyn.  Thousands of supporters attended her trial at Foley Square, in the ceremonial courtroom where the Rosenbergs had been convicted in 1951.  Her eminently well-respected trial attorney, Michael Tigar, at age 77, survives her, as does Mohammed Yousry, convicted with her for the crime of being a translator (court-appointed).

Ann Schneider is a member of the board of the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.