Former Watergate prosecutor and friends reflect on life in 'Legal Briefs'

For some people, retirement is an opportunity to kick back and finally relax. But for Roger M. Witten, it was a chance to finally tackle that book that he'd been thinking about writing. With a little help from longtime friends and colleagues, Legal Briefs: The Ups and Downs of Life in the Law was born.

Witten’s aim was to reach a general audience and give them an idea about what a life in the law could look like outside the most well-known bounds of a criminal justice, Law & Order career. The result is a series of short, digestible anecdotes from 20 attorneys, talking about memorable cases, clients and conundrums that they had. A reader could flip to any chapter in Legal Briefs and spend an enjoyable five to 10 minutes getting a snapshot from a contributor’s career.

Witten shares how he became an assistant special prosecutor for the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in the 1970s. In this episode of The Modern Law Library podcast, he tells host Lee Rawles about defending a wise guy client code-named Ted, who nicknamed Witten “Witless” and threw a party with a banner reading “Ted - 1, FBI - 0” when they reached a successful plea agreement.

Many of the contributors to the book of essays were involved in government litigation and complex corporate matters. Witten was one of the foremost litigators handling Foreign Corrupt Practices Act cases, and before his retirement, he was a senior litigation partner in Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr’s New York office.

In this episode, he also shares his perspective as a former Watergate prosecutor on current events within the federal government since the Trump administration began, and he recounts his experience with the late Sen. John McCain of Arizona while defending campaign finance reforms.

In This Podcast

Roger M. Witten

Roger M. Witten’s legal career began after a clerkship, with his appointment as an assistant Watergate special prosecutor on the staff of Archibald Cox. He then joined Wilmer Cutler & Pickering, which later became Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. Working in the law firm’s Washington, D.C., and New York offices, Witten’s practice focused on litigation that had international and/or public policy aspects; white-collar law enforcement matters; and internal investigations, which often related to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He was also a devoted advocate of campaign finance reform. He was the chair of WilmerHale’s litigation group and was a member of the firm’s management committee. He is now retired. Legal Briefs: The Ups and Downs of Life in the Law is his first book.