Nathan Greene (lawyer)


Nathan Greene, also known as "Nuddy" Greene, was a 20th-century American "Wall Street lawyer" and "legal scholar" who helped found the International Juridical Association, who, while still a Harvard law student, co-authored the influential book The Labor Injunction with his professor Felix Frankfurter, which criticized the U.S. Supreme Court for creating "government by injunction."

Background

Nathan Greene was born in Brooklyn, New York, circa 1902. He attended City College of New York and then graduated with an LLB jurisprudence in 1925 from Harvard Law, where he was a "Frankfurter favorite."

Career

In 1930, Greene co-authored Labor Injunction with Frankfurter, well received at the time as "at once scholarly and interesting... Mechanically the book is perfect" and also
"comprehensive."

Practice

According to The New York Times, Greene "advised many members of the New Deal Administration on labor legislation."
In the 1930s, Greene became a partner in the New York law firm of Cook, Nathan & Lehman. He worked there until the 1940s. While there, Greene became mentor Joseph Flom, later a partner in Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
In the 1950s, he served as special counsel to Lazard Freres & Co. and joined the Development and Resources Corporation or "D&R," founded in 1955 by David E. Lilienthal.

International Juridical Association (IJA)

By 1932, Greene had become a member of the International Juridical Association, whose members included: Carol Weiss King, Osmond Fraenkel, Joseph Brodsky , Roy Wilkins, Paul Frederick Brissenden, Jerome Frank, Karl Llewelyn, Charles Erskine Scott Wood, Floyd Dell, Yetta Land, Shad Polier, Thomas Emerson, Alger Hiss, Nathan Witt, Lee Pressman, Abe Fortas, and Joseph Kovner. Of King, Greene said:
She made you feel that unless you took the case or wrote the brief, the guy would be deported and maybe killed in his home country. Once you grudgingly committed yourself, you got interested in the legal problems themselves and they kept you going and doing the best you could. Im a lazy guy myself, but I really worked on cases Carol got me into.

With Joseph Kovner, he edited issues of the International Juridical Association Bulletin. Through the IJA, he came to know prominent Communist union officials, including Ben Gold and Irving Potash. He helped them prepare for legal cases, and then he wrote about those cases in the IJA Bulletin. Of the Bulletin, Greene commented said that the editor tried "to understand the day-by-day and month-by-month movements in freedom's ride and to convey this understanding to others."
In 1937, with other IJA members, Greene helped write an amici curiae on behalf picketers, whom the U.S. Supreme Court had bared during Senn v. Tile Layers Protective Union.
In 1938, unlike many other IJA members, Greene refused to help fund a habeas appeal for Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458.
In 1939, Greene helped draft a statement for King in her defense in Re Harry Bridges.
In 1940, Greene made a speech at an IJA annual fundraiser dinner in New York City, in which he stated:

In the speech, Greene also criticized the ACLU, which "hoped that on a level playing field, workers' private collective strength could effectively counter the power of capital. Its onetime allies reminded it, unavailingly, that background inequalities made its vision fanciful – that employer speech was "a protected commodity in a monopoly market."
In 1945, King had Greene write the brief for Bridges v. Wixon. "In essence, the King-Greene case theor argued that a denial of due process occurred because the government had already litigated the case, thereby resulting in a form of double jeopardy. In addition, the law due process was violated since Congress had passed the law under which he was prosecuted after Bridges' earlier legal victories.

Personal and death

Greene married Rosalinda Fleming; they had one daughter.
According to Carol Weiss King's biographer Ann Fagan Ginger, Greene was "absolutely convinced, from his work on the injunction book, that workers and unions are essential to democracy."
He was director of the American Civil Liberties Union or "ACLU," to which he developed a model bill to submit to state legislatures that would curb state courts when issuing labor injunctions.. He was also a director of Roosevelt Field on Long Island. He was a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and of the Harvard Club of New York.
Greene died age 62 on October 30, 1964, at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City.

Legacy

Greene was a Progressive lawyer on par with James Landis, upon whom people like CIO general counsel Lee Pressman called for expert advice.
Greene remains quoted by legal experts. Another quote is: "The law must not be asked to be a pioneer in either in ethics, but it ought not to lag behind the common feelings of justice."

Works

In 1930, Greene co-authored The Labor Injunction with Frankfurther while he was still at Harvard. The book provides "an excellent treatment of the reasons underlying the anti-injunction laws." The article was "a learned and effective plea against the use of injunctions to curb the self-help methods of organized labor and in favor of the then pending Norris-LaGuardia Act." Rather than withhold withhold from remedy for the wrongs, Greene and Frankfurter argued as follows:
No such interpretation is possible for the proposed bill, which explicitly applies only to the authority of United States courts 'to issue any restraining order or injunction.' All other remedies in federal courts and all remedies in state courts remain available.

In their 1931 article "Congressional Power Over the Labor Injunction," Greene and Frankfurter wrote:
Is the denial of all adequate judicial remedies in case of an illegal strike a denial of due process of law? The question is not pertinent, for the bill only withdraws the remedy of injunction. Civil action for damages and criminal prosecution remain available instruments. Illegal strikes are not made legal.

With Felix Frankfurter:
By himself:
Articles: