"The Trials of Jesselyn Radack"
Sitting in her well-appointed living room in a leafy northwest Washington, D.C., neighborhood, Jesselyn Radack seems an unlikely candidate for martyrdom in the war on terror. For three years the Yale Law School graduate and self-described soccer mom made her living telling other government lawyers how to stay out of trouble.The 32-year-old former U.S. Department of Justice ethics adviser says she thought she'd be a career government lawyer. But that was before she decided to object to the government's tactics in the John Walker Lindh case last year.
Since then she's lost two jobs -- pushed out of her Justice post and then fired from New York's Hawkins, Delafield & Wood, the firm that had taken her in -- and now finds herself unemployed and in limbo. Her personal challenges are daunting: under criminal investigation, ailing from multiple sclerosis, and expecting a third child in January. But far from singing the victim's song, Radack appears composed and stalwart, telling her story with short, chopping hand strokes and near-encyclopedic recall.
I guess it just goes to show that it can be unprofitable to challenge demagogues like John Ashcroft. Read the whole story here from The American Lawyer, via The New York Lawyer.
Comments
I don't think her case is as clear-cut as you suggest. As I read it, she resigned from DOJ because of a policy dispute with her superiors. That's a perfectly defensible decision if one feels strongly about a principled disagreement, but it hardly amounts to being pushed out.
As for the career problems she's had since then, the article makes it clear that there is at least a colorable basis for concluding that she violated client confidentiality in a big way. I have a hard time mustering much sympathy for her under those circumstances.
Her personal challenges are indeed daunting. MS is a terrible burden, and I have great respect for those can bear it so well (I might not have decided to have a third child in the throes of a degenerative disease, but now that's it's on the way, best wishes). However, these references to her personal challenges strike me as irrelevant melodrama in the context of the story about her career troubles.
Posted by: Tom T. | July 15, 2003 6:08 AM
She was extorted out of her job with a vitriolic performance evaluation after receiving a merit bonus the year before.
Read the New Yorker article and see her website at www.cradl.info
Posted by: www.cradl.info | July 17, 2003 4:12 PM