Tuesday, March 29, 2022

DJ's obit for Ellis Horvitz

Today's DJ has Ellis J. Horvitz, 1928-2022: Litigator, raconteur is credited with creating the appellate law firm.

  • Horvitz died March 22, weeks shy of his 94th birthday.
  • Born in Cleveland on April 27, 1928, he attended Stanford Law School at the same time as two future U.S. Supreme Court Justices: Sandra Day O’Connor and Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. He kept a picture including the three of them in his Los Angeles office
  • Just a few years after passing the bar in 1951, Horvitz decided he wanted to spend his career in appellate law. He co-founded Horvitz & Levy in 1957 as a firm specializing in the practice. This was then an unusual concept
  • Horvitz “briefed more than 80 cases in the California Supreme Court and presented oral argument in more than 50”
  • “Ellis was the pioneer. He was the George Washington of appellate practice.”