Weinstein, Jack B.
WEINSTEIN, JACK B.
WEINSTEIN, JACK B. (1921– ), U.S. federal judge. Born in Wichita, Kansas, Weinstein graduated from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York in 1943 and served as an officer in the U.S. Navy during World War ii. He received his law degree from Columbia University in 1948. In 1949 and 1950 he served as law clerk to Judge Stanley H. Fuld of the New York Court of Appeals. In 1953 Weinstein entered private practice and began teaching at Columbia Law School, where he continued to teach until 1998. From 1956 to 1967 he was County Attorney of Nassau County, New York.
Weinstein served as special counsel to the New York Joint Legislative Committee on Motor Vehicle Problems, and as counsel to New York State Senator Seymour Halpern. He was secretary of the Nassau County Board of Ethics, and he served as consultant and reporter for the New York Temporary Commission on Courts in 1966. In 1967 he served as adviser to the New York State Constitutional Convention.
That same year he was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson as a federal judge in the Eastern District of New York. Weinstein served as chief judge of the Eastern District from 1980 to 1988, becoming senior judge in 1993. He ruled on many high-profile mass tort cases, including those involving asbestos, Agent Orange, tobacco, and handguns, and the 1999 case of Hamilton v. Accu-Tek, in which damages were awarded based on negligent marketing. He is considered to have had a significant influence on the law of mass tort litigation. The New York Times called Weinstein the "quintessential activist judge."
Judge Weinstein was considered an authority on a wide range of issues, including procedure, legal ethics, judicial administration, and the role of science in the courts. He was the author of numerous articles for law reviews, and his works include widely cited treatises and casebooks on New York civil procedure and federal evidence rules, including Reform of Federal Court Rule Making Procedures (1976), Basic Problems of State and Federal Evidence (1976), Mass Torts: Cases and Materials (1994), and Individual Justice in Mass Tort Litigations (1995).
A member of the New York State Bar Association, Judge Weinstein was the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Judicial Recognition Award of the National Association of Defense Lawyers, the Edward J. Devitt Distinguished Service to Justice Award, the Columbia Law School Excellence Award, the Honorable William J. Brennan Award of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the National Law Journal 's Lawyer of the Year Award.
[Dorothy Bauhoff (2nd ed.)]