Summary: Recently Alan Dershowitz said working on O.J. Simpson’s “Dream Team” was actually a “nightmare.”
Inside Edition spoke to Alan Dershowitz, one of the members of O.J. Simpson’s defense team. Because of the smash hit success of FX’s The People vs. O.J. Simpson, there is now a huge renewal of interest in the 1995 murder case and the players involved.
Inside Edition asked Derschowitz what it was like to be a part of O.J. Simpson’s “Dream Team,” a name the media dubbed the group of power defense lawyers which included Derschowitz, Robert Shapiro, Johnnie Cochran, F. Lee Bailey, Gerald Uelmen, and Carl E. Douglas. Kim Kardashian’s father, Robert Kardashian, was a legal assistant on the case.
“It was a nightmare team,” Dershowitz said. “The lawyer’s egos were clashing. Everybody was trying to take credit. We won, not because we were good but because the prosecution was so bad.”
Derschowitz said the prosecution’s biggest mistake was letting Simpson try on the infamous “if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” gloves.
“Once he tried on the glove, he was able to walk over to the jury and say it’s too small, he didn’t have to testify! He had testified and wasn’t cross examined,” Dershowitz said.
During his murder trial, Simpson tried on the bloody gloves, and they didn’t fit. Photo courtesy of NBC.
Variety reports that The People vs. O.J. Simpson broke records for FX. It set a viewership record for an original drama with 5.11 million viewers. The series is the first of the franchise American Crime Story created by Ryan Murphy, the visionary behind hit shows Glee and American Horror Story.
The series is based on the 1996 book The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson be Jeffrey Toobin.
Members of the O.J. Simpson defense team at a news conference. Photo courtesy of AP Photo/Pool, John McCoy.
Twenty years later, what happened to The Dream Team?
Derschowitz spent most of his carer at Harvard Law School until he retired in December of 2013. According to his Harvard Law profile, he “has been called “the nation’s most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer” and one of its “most distinguished defenders of individual rights,” “the best-known criminal lawyer in the world,” “the top lawyer of last resort,” “America’s most public Jewish defender” and “Israel’s single most visible defender – the Jewish state’s lead attorney in the court of public opinion.””
Robert Shapiro continues to practice law. He is a partner at Glaser Weil Fink Jacobs Howard Avchen & Shapiro, LLP, and his company profile states, “He has represented a number of high-profile corporations, including Rockstar Energy Drink, Diamond Resorts International, Steve Wynn and Wynn Resorts Ltd, Cadeau Express, as well as many celebrity clients.”
Cochran published an autobiography and continued practicing law after the trial. He was a prominent leader in the African-American community, and he was one of two lawyers to ever receive both the Trial Lawyer of the Year Award from both the Criminal Courts Bar and the LA Trial Lawyers Association. He passed away in 2009, according to LegalZoom.
According to LegalZoom, Bailey was disbarred in 2001 for co-mingling stock of a client with his own money. Although his career ended early, he is best remembered for his work on the O.J. trial.
Uelmen is a law professor at Santa Clara Law. According to his university profile, he continues to practice criminal law part-time while teaching.
Douglas was the managing attorney of Johnnie Cochran’s law firm before he left in 1998 to form his own practice, The Douglas Firm. His website states he specializes in cases involving police misconduct.
Robert Kardashian gained national attention in 1995 because of the Dream Team, and his family carried on his famous legacy. His daughters and son Kourtney, Kim, Khloe, and Robert Kardashian are some of the biggest stars in the world. Kardashian passed away in 2003.