Nussbaum grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, home at the time to many immigrant families from Eastern Europe.
In his senior year he became a note editor of the Law Review, succeeding future Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia.
In 1962, he was sworn in as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York, in the office led by Robert Morgenthau.
In 1966, Nussbaum joined the New York law firm, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, one year after the firm was founded in January 1965 by Martin Lipton, Herbert Wachtell, Leonard Rosen, and George Katz, four lawyers in their early 30s who in time became preeminent in the legal profession.
Nussbaum won that case, which was ultimately decided by the New York State Court of Appeals, and Holtzman's election was upheld.
As a result of that victory, Peter Rodino, a senior congressman from New Jersey replaced Celler and became chairman of the Judiciary Committee which later successfully conducted the impeachment inquiry involving U.S. President Richard Nixon.
[3] During his tenure as President Bill Clinton's first White House Counsel he was involved in major personnel and policy issues facing the administration.
[4] Contrary to the advice of others on the White House staff, in the administration, and in Congress, Nussbaum strongly urged the President not to seek the appointment of an independent counsel with respect to those matters.
He warned the president that the institution of an independent counsel, who is responsible to no one, tends to become an uncontrolled, never ending effort to find wrongdoing even where none exists.
Consequently, he argued, despite media and congressional pressure, in addition to their being no legal basis, it also made no political sense to request such an appointment.
The President, nonetheless, in response to media and congressional pressure, decided to ask the Attorney General to appoint an independent counsel and she did.
A few months later, as predicted by Nussbaum, three appellate judges replaced the counsel appointed by the Attorney General with Ken Starr.
He was ultimately acquitted by the Senate, but the impeachment proceeding subsequently affected future presidential elections, first involving Vice President Al Gore and later Hillary Clinton.
"[5] Referring to media criticism of Nussbaum's advice, the President wrote "there would have been no investigation, subpoenas, or grand jury if I had listened to him and refused to give into the demands for an independent counsel to 'clear the air.'
"[6] Nussbaum resigned on March 5, 1994,[7] as a result of the Whitewater controversy and the position he took regarding the appointment of an Independent Counsel.
President Clinton later wrote: "Bernie Nussbaum resigned in early March; he never got over my foolish decision to ask for an independent counsel, and he didn't want to be a source of further problems ... [he was an] able, honest public servant.
In a South Carolina state court he defeated an effort by Jack Kent Cooke to take over Multimedia, Inc. a local owned broadcast and newspaper enterprise.
In 2004, Nussbaum won a jury verdict in a New York federal court on behalf of the developer of the rebuilt World Trade Center, Larry Silverstein, against major insurance companies.
In the course of his career, Nussbaum was asked to represent major law firms (including Sullivan and Cromwell and Shearman and Sterling) in lawsuits brought against them or certain of their partners.
In 1992, in a case which generated one of the most prominent legal ethics controversies of the decade, Nussbaum represented the law firm of Kaye Scholer.
It made it virtually impossible to contest the government's action as the firm would likely not survive in the interim as clients and employees would depart.
In less than a week, a settlement was reached which did not require an admission of wrongdoing by the firm and provided for a monetary payment over time which was covered by insurance.
Since then, decisions regarding judicial salaries are made every four years by an independent commission rather than by the executive and legislative branches.
On January 28, 2011, Nussbaum sent a letter to President Barack Obama stating that while serving as White House Counsel he extensively reviewed the Jonathan Pollard file.
He served as a trustee of the Boys Brotherhood Republic (now part of the Henry Street Settlement), a self-governing youth club on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
The board reviews decisions made by the district attorney's office as to whether certain individuals have been wrongly convicted of crimes.
Among other political races, she played an important role in raising funds, in New York State and elsewhere, for the Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale during the 1984 campaign.