#20 Lenny Rubin

LENNY RUBIN.pdf

Title

#20 Lenny Rubin

Creator

Jacob Schlitt

Description

"Lenny Rubin was the first friend I made after entering City College in September 1945."

Date

2004/2008

Format

application/pdf

Type

text

Language

en

Identifier

LENNY_RUBIN

Text

# 20 LENNY RUBIN


Lenny Rubin was the first friend I made after entering City College in September 1945. I had come to CCNY with a close-knit group of friends that had been together through junior high school and high school. But on that first day of class, there was Lenny, seated in front of me in two consecutive classes. In those days, seats were assigned alphabetically. After the second class, we acknowledged the coincidence and became friends.

Lenny lived in Manhattan, had gone to the High School of Commerce, was tough, argumentative, smart, and exuded an air of confidence. He was of medium height, good looking with dark wavy hair, and would have been a fine athlete, except for a back injury. We shared the same politics and the same economic condition. We both had part-time jobs but managed to spend a lot of time together over the next four years.

When we graduated, I went on for a Master’s at City College, and Lenny took a job with the New York welfare department as a youth worker in Harlem, and went to Brooklyn Law School at night. By 1953, Lenny was married, had graduated from law school, had passed the Bar and started a practice with a classmate whose father was a judge. He thought it would generate business. It didn’t. One of his first cases involved a young man he knew from his days as a youth worker who had been accused of stealing tires. Lenny won the case, and when he asked for payment, his client responded, "as soon as I unload the tires."

Lenny was always very competitive. He loved litigation and was a bulldog in the courtroom. But he wasn’t getting much business. It was time to find another job. Lenny became an Assistant District Attorney in New York County. By the late ‘50s, he was a highly regarded Assistant DA who had successfully prosecuted a group of marijuana dealers. They subsequently asked him to represent them as their attorney. And it came to pass that Lenny Rubin left the DA’s office, formed a partnership with another attorney, and I suspect that their only clients were the above mentioned pot dealers. At the same time, his first marriage ended, he remarried and soon after, they had their first child.

Original Format

application/msword

Collection

Citation

Jacob Schlitt, “#20 Lenny Rubin,” Autobiographical stories & other writing by Jacob Schlitt, accessed March 29, 2024, https://tsirlson.omeka.net/items/show/13.