Weinstein continued to teach at his graduate alma mater as an untenured lecturer in law. In 1949, he completed a clerkship with New York State Court of Appeals Judge Stanley H. Fuld before opening his own law practice in Manhattan a year later—"in part because anti-Semitism at the time made finding work at a firm difficult."[6] Following the recommendation of Columbia colleague Walter Gellhorn, Weinstein also worked with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund during this period; eventually, he was a member of the litigation team for Brown v. Board of Education (although he frequently downplayed his contributions, insisting that he was "doing the kind of work that a young associate would do: preparing briefs and research"[6]) before working on the "one man, one vote" litigation of the 1960s. His collaborators included such Columbia colleagues as Charles Black and Jack Greenberg. Weinstein also worked for Republican State Senator Seymour Halpern.[3] While on the faculty of Columbia Law School, he concurrently served as county attorney of Nassau County, New York from 1963 to 1965, overseeing "a large staff of attorneys who represented various county departments, including the police and social service agencies."[7]
Federal judicial service
Weinstein on the bench, early 2000sWeinstein on the bench, 2017
As a federal judge, he worked with a number of mass tort cases, including those relating to Agent Orange, asbestos, tobacco, breast implants, diethylstilbestrol, Zyprexa, and handguns. He has been known to take on large numbers of cases from other judges, and on one occasion collected most of the unresolved habeas corpus petitions in the Eastern District to bring finality to the claims of many prisoners.[10] Although Weinstein assumed senior status on March 1, 1993, he continued to maintain a full docket of cases until entering inactive senior status on February 10, 2020.[8] His change to inactive senior status meant that while he remained a federal judge, he no longer heard cases or participated in the business of the court.[11]
Academic service
Following two years in private practice, Weinstein was appointed to a tenured professorship at Columbia Law School from 1952 (becoming a full professor in 1956) until commencing his judicial service in 1967. He was the first legal scholar appointed to Columbia Law School's tenure-track faculty after World War II[12] and remained on the institution's faculty (likely nominally as an adjunct professor, although biographer Jeffrey B. Morris has maintained that Weinstein "was not just a part-time adjunct" because he continued to maintain a full courseload and professional relationships with his Columbia colleagues)[12] until 1998.
The Second Circuit Appeals court reversed Weinstein's ruling in favor of the City of New York (Mayor Michael Bloomberg) against a group of gun manufacturers.[14] The Second Circuit found the suit to be barred under Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). From the decision of April 30, 2008; "We conclude that the City's claim, predicated on New York Penal Law § 240.45, does not fall within an exception to the claim restricting provisions of the Act because that statute does not fall within the contours of the Act's predicate exception. We also hold that the PLCAA is a valid exercise of the powers granted to Congress pursuant to the Commerce Clause and that the PLCAA does not violate the doctrine of separation of powers or otherwise offend the Constitution in any manner alleged by the City."[15]
In March 2005, Weinstein dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange against producers of chemicals defoliants/herbicides on the grounds that use of the herbicide in warfare had been legal under the international law of the time.[16]
According to a May 2010 New York Times article, Weinstein entered the national debate regarding child pornography laws by issuing a "series of rulings that directly attack the mandatory five-year prison sentence faced by defendants charged with receiving child pornography."[17]
Between 2006 and 2007, Weinstein presided over a case involving the dissemination of Eli Lilly internal documents relating to the drug Zyprexa. Zyprexa was the subject of litigation in which the plaintiffs alleged that Eli Lilly had downplayed certain side effects associated with Zyprexa.[18] An anonymous "citizen-journalist" initially released the internal documents on the public Internet before Weinstein issued an order blocking publication of material that would "facilitate dissemination" of the documents.[19]
In August 2017, Weinstein amended his rule sheet to encourage junior female lawyers to take a speaking role in his courtroom.[20] In October 2017, Weinstein threatened to hold a dedicated hearing on police perjury after allowing allegations to go to trial that police officers had falsely arrested a cashier simply to claim overtime.[21]
In December 2017, Weinstein sentenced three gang members to up to eight years in prison for robbing at gunpoint a family and their five young children inside their home. In his statement of reasons for the sentence, however, Weinstein criticized mandatory sentencing for unjustly punishing the perpetrators as "society's unredeemables".[22] On June 11, 2018, Weinstein explicitly criticized recent Supreme Court precedent when he refused to grant qualified immunity to police officers who had allegedly beaten a resident when he tried to stop them from entering his home without a warrant.[23]
Death
Weinstein died on June 15, 2021, in Great Neck, New York (where he resided for most of his adult life) at the age of 99.[2][24]
Publications
Weinstein's publications include leading treatises on evidence and New York practice. He wrote a number of law review articles (not included below) and several books.
Individual Justice in Mass Tort Litigation: The Effect of Class Actions, Consolidations, and Other Multiparty Devices (1995)[25]
Mass Torts:Cases and Materials (with Kenneth Feinberg) (1992)[26]
Chapter VIII - Rulemaking by the Courts: The Judicial Administration Division Handbook, A.B.A. (6th ed., 1981)
Reform of the Court Rulemaking Procedures, The Institute of Comparative Law in Japan (Japanese ed., 1981)
Reform of the Federal Rulemaking Process (Ohio State Univ. Press, 1977)
Basic Problems of State and Federal Evidence (by Edward R. Morgan), 5th ed. Weinstein Rev., (1976)
Weinstein's Evidence (with Prof. Margaret Berger), 7 Volumes, 1975–1979, With Annual Supplements, One Volume, 1987, With Annual Supplements
Cases and Materials on Evidence (with Morgan and Maguire) 1957, (with Maguire, Chadbourn & Mansfield, 1964, 1970, 1973) (with Mansfield, Berger & Abrams, 1981, 1988)