Distinguished Visitor, Princeton University
Program in Law and Public Affairs

Formerly United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Harry Litman is currently a distinguished visitor in Princeton University’s Program in Law and Public Affairs, a joint venture of the university’s Politics Department, University Center for Human Values and Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. From 1998 to 2001, as United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, he oversaw the prosecution of all federal crimes, as well as the litigation of civil matters in which the federal government has an interest, throughout the 25 counties comprising western Pennsylvania.

For five years prior to being appointed to that position by President Clinton, Litman served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice, focusing on issues of criminal law, constitutional law and prosecutorial policy. He was simultaneously a special assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia and co-counsel for Operation Underhand, which resulted in dozens of convictions on charges of smuggling drugs into a prison under the guise of providing religious counseling.

Previously, Litman served as an assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of California, where he worked on several national cases, including the re-prosecution of the Rodney King case.

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Litman was named one of Pennsylvania’s two Presidential Scholars as a graduating high school senior in 1976. He received a B.A. with honors from Harvard University and his juris doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. He was editor-in-chief of the Law Review and graduated Order of the Coif. Both before and during law school, Litman worked as a sportswriter for the Associated Press. Litman has also been an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown Law Center, where he taught Constitutional Law and Evidence, and at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught Separation of Powers. He is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in American Law and has published several articles on Criminal Law and Federalism.

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