[1][2] During the 1948 Palestine war, he collected light arms to smuggle to the Haganah.
[1] In 1949, he joined the law firm Levy, Gutman, Goldberg & Kaplan, where his father was a partner.
[1] In 1951, hoping to combat McCarthyism, Gutman became a founding member of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
[1] Over the course of his career, Gutman litigated many civil rights cases, with prominent clients including Abbie Hoffman, Douglas Faneuil, Jerry Rubin, and conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War.
[4] He also defended cult leaders such as Sun Myung Moon and leaders of the Hare Krishna movement;[1][3] sociologist Stjepan Meštrović described Gutman as "sympathetic to cult movements, express[ing] regret that the First Amendment is not applied vigorously to defend them, and refer[ring] to 'deprogramming' as a 'dirty business'".