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Irving Younger (bornIrving Yoskowitz; November 30, 1932 – March 13, 1988) was an American lawyer, law professor, judge, and writer. He is well known among lawyers and law students for his energetic talks on effective trial advocacy and legal history.
Younger was born inNew York City and attended high school at theBronx High School of Science, followed by undergraduate studies atHarvard University, from which he graduated in 1953. After serving for two years in theUnited States Army, Younger obtained hisJuris Doctor degree fromNew York University Law School in 1958. He was married toJudith T. Younger (née Weintraub), who is also a lawyer and law professor.
After graduating from law school, Younger worked briefly as a litigation associate at the New York law firm ofPaul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, before becoming an AssistantUnited States Attorney in theSouthern District of New York. As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Younger handled criminal trials and appeals. Younger's most famous case as a prosecutor was the trial of singerPete Seeger forcontempt of Congress after Seeger refused to answer questions about allegedCommunist Party membership and activities. Seeger was convicted and sentenced to prison, but theCourt of Appeals reversed the conviction on a technicality; Younger reports in his autobiography,Some of My Life, that he was not upset when that occurred. After several years in the U.S. Attorney's office, Younger opened a practice as a private defense lawyer, partnering with his wife and handling a wide variety of cases.
In 1968, Younger was unexpectedly elected as a judge of theNew York City Civil Court, a lower-level trial court, from a district in Manhattan, running on theDemocratic,Liberal, andConservative party lines. As a judge, Younger presided over both civil and criminal cases and authored more than a dozen published opinions.
In 1974, Younger resigned from his judgeship to move upstate, accepting a professorship (the Samuel S. Leibowitz Professor of Trial Techniques) atCornell Law School. From 1981 to 1984, Younger was a member of theWashington, D.C. law firm ofWilliams & Connolly, and during the same period also taught as an adjunct professor atGeorgetown University Law Center. From 1984 until his death in 1988, he was a professor at theUniversity of Minnesota Law School. Younger specialized in the fields ofevidence law and trial advocacy, and authored casebooks and training materials for lawyers in these subjects. His legal textbookPrinciples of Evidence, originally co-authored withMichael Goldsmith and more recently also with David Sonenshein, is currently in its 5th edition. He was a well-known lecturer to audiences of lawyers and law students, and more than thirty years after his death, tapes of his continuing legal education talks remain in frequent use, prized for their wit and theatrics as well as their substance and insight.
For several years, Younger authored a column on improving legal writing. He also wrote and lectured widely about famous cases in legal history. A selection of his writings, including his article, "The Trial of Alger Hiss", originally published inCommentary (August 1975); the story behind the case ofErie Railroad v. Tompkins; andthe obscenity prosecution ofJames Joyce's bookUlysses were collected in an anthology:The Irving Younger Collection: Wisdom & Wit from the Master of Trial Advocacy, published by the American Bar Association in 2011.
Younger died ofpancreatic cancer in 1988, at the age of 55. His wife remained on the faculty at Minnesota and taught there until 2022.
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