[1] Born into a Jewish family in Zirke, in the Prussian province of Posen, he attended gymnasium in Frankfurt, Sagan, and Glogau.
After doing journalistic work for a time, he began in 1853 to practice law in Louisville, Kentucky, where he remained for the rest of his career.
[2] Politically active, Dembitz was a delegate to the 1860 Republican National Convention, assistant city attorney of Louisville, 1884–1888, and was a commissioner for Kentucky to the Conference for the Uniformity of State Laws.
In 1888, Dembitz drafted the first Australian ballot law ever adopted in the United States, to govern elections in Louisville.
His legal works include: Kentucky Jurisprudence, 1890; Law Language for Shorthand Writers, 1892; and Land Titles in the United States, 2 vols., 1895.