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About Me

Marlene Trestman is the author of Fair Labor Lawyer: The Remarkable Life of New Deal Attorney and Supreme Court Advocate Bessie Margolin. For the last decade of her thirty-year career with the Maryland Attorney General’s Office, from which she retired in 2013, Trestman served as Special Assistant to the Attorney General. Recognized for her enforcement of laws governing consumer protection and public health, Trestman twice received the Attorney General’s Exceptional Service Award.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate and former trustee of Goucher College, Trestman earned her law degree from George Washington University, and her MBA from Loyola University of Maryland’s Sellinger School, where she has taught law.

A recipient of the Supreme Court Historical Society’s Hughes-Gossett Literary Prize, Trestman also has won research funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, American Jewish Archives, and the Texas Jewish Historical Society. Prompted by her ongoing quest to write her mentor, Bessie Margolin, back into history, her essay for the Supreme Court Historical Society provides the first complete list of women to argue at the Supreme Court, dating back to Belva Ann Lockwood’s debut in November 1880.

A native of New Orleans, Trestman lives in Baltimore, where she is working on her second book, a history of New Orleans’s Jewish Orphans Home, 1856-1946. In addition to other civic and philanthropic activities, Trestman is a board member of BIO, Biographers International Organization.

Trestman’s debut book, Fair Labor Lawyer has received favorable and widespread media coverage in the National Book Review, Baltimore Sun, New Orleans Advocate, scholarly journals of American and Jewish historical societies, and bar association magazines. Trestman’s numerous and ongoing public appearances include the Library of Congress, National Archives, WWII Museum, FDR Presidential Library, historical societies, synagogues, libraries, law schools, bar associations, and book festivals. Her multi-media presentations and interviews have been broadcast on PBS, C-SPAN, and National Public Radio affiliates.

Recent Publications

• Book – Fair Labor Lawyer: The Remarkable Life of New Deal Attorney and Supreme Court Advocate Bessie Margolin. Baton Rouge: LSU Press (2016).
• Book Review, Jewish Justices of the Supreme Court: From Brandeis to Kagan, Their Lives and Legacies by David G. Dalin, The American Jewish Archives Journal (forthcoming Fall 2018).
• Article, “Willebrandt, Carloss, Margolin and Rosenberg, Four 20^th Century Superstars of the Supreme Court Bar.” Women Lawyers Journal 101, no. 2 (July 2016): 18-23.
• Commentary, “Bessie Margolin – Equal Pay Champion.” The Daily Record, Apr. 8 2016.
• Book Reviews, “That Pride of Race and Character by Caroline Light and Carolina Israelite: How Harry Golden Made Us Care About Jews, the South and Civil Rights by Kimberly Marlowe Harnett, North Carolina Historical Review, January 2016
• Entry, “Bessie Margolin,” American National Biography, Oxford University Press (2016).
• Article, “First 101 Women to Argue at the United States Supreme Court,” available at www.supremecourthistory.org (2014).
• Article, “Fair Labor: The Remarkable Life and Legal Career of Bessie Margolin,” 37 J. Sup. Ct. Hist. 42-74 (2012) (Awarded Supreme Court Historical Society’s 2012 Hughes-Gossett Prize.)
• Article, “Addenda to ‘Fair Labor’: A Discussion of Methodology in Tallying Supreme Court Argument Records of Pioneer Female Advocates,” 38 J. Sup. Ct. Hist. 252-260 (2013).

Media Coverage

https://www.marlenetrestman.com/news.html

Social Media

@marlenetrestman

Country Focus

United States

Expertise by Geography

United States

Expertise by Chronology

19th century, 20th century

Expertise by Topic

Law, Women