The Sad Story Of Mark Levy
While reviewing some of his old stories about Samuel Alito in the wake of Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination, your blogger came upon a reference to Mark Levy, the Washington appellate attorney who committed suicide late last month. He and Alito were friends dating back to their days at Yale Law School. The story of how a once up-and-coming elite lawyer ended up killing himself after losing his job at Kilpatrick Stockton seemed to strike a nerve within the legal community.
This extract from your blogger’s November 2005 story in the Daily Journal touches upon how, at one point in Levy’s life, he and Alito seemed to be on similar trajectories. But it was Alito who ended up at the top:
Another lawyer familiar with Alito’s jurisprudence is longtime friend Mark I. Levy, a leading appellate lawyer at Kilpatrick Stockton in Washington, who has known the nominee for 30 years.
They met at Yale Law School, where they were jointly awarded the prize for best law note in the Yale Law Journal in their graduating year of 1975.
They later worked together at the solicitor general’s office, a period during which the future Supreme Court nominee once house-sat for Levy, a job which entailed looking after his friend’s golden retriever.
The innocent nature of Levy’s remarks seems to take on a different context in light of what happened.
UPDATE: The ABA Journal has this detailed account of Levy’s final days.
Lawrence Hurley 