[1] During his lengthy legal career he won some high-profile cases, most notably parole for notorious killer Nathan Leopold and the obscenity trial of Henry Miller's novel Tropic of Cancer, a book published in France but banned in the United States because of its "candid sexuality" in describing the author's life in Paris.
[2] In addition to accounts of his cases and career, he also reviewed books and edited a collection of works by Frank Harris, whom he represented as literary agent for a while.
[3] He is best remembered in the legal world, however, for a case in which he was not an advocate but a plaintiff: Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc.,[4] a libel action he brought against the John Birch Society in 1969 after it accused him of being part of a Communist conspiracy to discredit local police departments.
[5] He prevailed, but only after a 14-year battle that saw the case go before the Supreme Court, which ruled that as a private figure Gertz did not have to prove actual malice on the defendants' part.
[10] At the age of ten, his mother dead and his father unable to care for his children, he spent the remainder of his childhood in orphanages in Chicago and Cleveland.
[14] He remained involved in education throughout his life, teaching a civil rights class at The John Marshall Law School until his death in 2000.
In the mid-1960s, Gertz emulated his legal inspiration, Clarence Darrow, when he argued against the death sentence handed down to Jack Ruby for killing Lee Harvey Oswald.
On appeal, the case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which was asked to settle the question of whether or not Gertz was a public figure, who would thus have to prove actual malice to win (which he probably could not have).
[22] Elmer Gertz received Israel's Prime Minister's Medal in 1972 for his service on that country's behalf, and considered that his finest accomplishment.