Still, such harassment has not deterred Dershowitz—in fact, he frequently engages in “deep and spirited dialogue” with those who contest his opinions, according to Ogletree. “He’s a man who believes in jumping in the fire,” Ogletree says. “Controversy has never been a factor in preventing him from expressing his point of view.”

A STREETFIGHTER’S CLASSROOM

This fearless approach to argument has come to dominate Dershowitz’s approach to litigation and to teaching—two roles he often seems to blend.

“In my own life, I’ve tried to bring my theory into the courtroom and my practice into the classroom,” Dershowitz says. “Superb lawyers have to be able to integrate theory and practice.”

And Dershowitz credits his performance in the courtroom—he calls himself the most successful appellate murder lawyer in history and has argued 37 homicide cases—to his experience in the classroom.

“It’s very gratifying because I win them through science,” he says. “I win them by bringing the classroom into the courtroom.” In a recent victory, for example, Dershowitz argued the reversal of a life imprisonment sentence using the content of his course on law and psychiatry.

In turn, Dershowitz’s time in court informs his pedagogical approach, in which he neglects hypotheticals in favor of cases he has personally experienced and argues with his students as though they are opposing counsel.

“He’s very challenging,” says Law School student Michele Materni, who took two classes from Dershowitz and now works as his teaching fellow for a freshman seminar at the College. “He loves to put out his ideas, and he loves it even more when students challenge him.”

Those moments of discord stand out for Dershowitz, who calls himself “Socratic with a smile.”

“I never insult my students, but I push them very, very hard,” he says. While the Socratic method has recently come under fire at the Law School, Dershowitz defends the technique. “I think if we were to ever get rid of the Socratic method, it would be a disaster for legal education,” he says. “Our job is to make [students] squirm, to make them rethink their ideas, to make them challenge what they regard as fundamental notions.”

But while Dershowitz may force his students to defend their opinions with the same gusto with which he attacks his critics and opponents, he insists that his students need not share his views.

“I don’t want to influence Ted Cruz to become more liberal. I want to teach him to have better analytic skills that will make him a better conservative,” says Dershowitz of former pupil Ted Cruz, the firebrand Republican Senator from Texas who graduated from the Law School in 1995. “I think the worst professors are those who use their captive audiences to persuade them of their own ideology or perspectives.”

NO REGRETS

When the Law School semester officially ends next week, Dershowitz will leave a job he has held for the last half century.

Dershowitz says he has no regrets. “I’ve done what I’ve wanted to do, I’ve written the books I’ve wanted to write, I’ve taught the classes I’ve wanted to teach,” he says.

For Dershowitz, the professorial lifestyle has allowed him to “do everything.”

“I have a terminal case of FOMS, fear of missing something, and I never wanted to miss anything,” Dershowitz says. “My life has been based off of trying to do everything at the same time.”

Looking ahead, Dershowitz plans to split his time between Miami Beach, Martha’s Vineyard, and New York, writing, litigating, and having fun, he says—but not teaching.

Still, he does not view next week as his retirement. “I think of it as a career change,” he says. “I’ve had one job for 50 years just teaching at Harvard, and now I’m 75, so I’m thinking of what I want to do next.”

—Staff writer Dev A. Patel can be reached at dev.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @dev_a_patel.