He received his Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University in 1965, where he was president of the Quill and Dagger society and a member of Zeta Beta Tau.

Friedman has issued rulings that relaxed the restrictions on Hinckley by allowing him to leave the grounds of St. Elizabeths Hospital to spend more days each month visiting his mother's home town of Williamsburg, Virginia.

[5][6] Friedman also notably dismissed a lawsuit filed by 26 members of Congress who contended that President Clinton has had no legal authority to continue U.S. participation in the airstrikes against Yugoslavia.

The bipartisan lawsuit sought to enforce timetables in the largely ignored Vietnam-era War Powers Act, which would have required Clinton to obtain congressional approval or terminate U.S. involvement in Kosovo by May 25, two months after the start of the action.

"[7] “We are witnessing a chief executive who criticizes virtually every judicial decision that doesn’t go his way and denigrates judges who rule against him, sometimes in very personal terms.