Benjamin R. Civiletti Biography

Benjamin R. Civiletti served as U.S. attorney general from 1979 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. An experienced lawyer specializing in criminal and civil litigation before entering government service, Civiletti served at a time of intense international pressure. He personally argued before the International Court of Justice on behalf of the American captives held in Iran.

Civiletti was born on July 17, 1935, in Peekskill, New York. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1957 and then attended the University of Maryland School of Law. After graduating in 1961, Civiletti worked for two years as a law clerk for a federal district court judge. In 1962, he was appointed an assistant U.S. attorney for the district of Maryland, a position he held until 1964.

He left government to join the Baltimore, Maryland, law firm of Venable, Baetjer and Howard. He became a partner in 1969, and in 1971 he was named head of the firm's litigation department. As a private attorney, Civiletti specialized in criminal and civil trial work.

After Jimmy Carter was elected president in 1976, he named Griffin Bell U.S. attorney general. Bell, who had been a federal appeals court judge, needed to find lawyers with extensive criminal trial experience to oversee federal prosecutions. In 1977 he named Civiletti assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division of the Department of Justice. A year later he promoted Civiletti to deputy attorney general. After Bell resigned in 1979, President Carter named Civiletti U.S. attorney general.

As attorney general, Civiletti acted as both an administrator and as a courtroom lawyer. He argued before the International Court of Justice on behalf of the American captives in Iran and before the Supreme Court for the right of the government to denaturalize Nazi war criminals. He also successfully defended the President Carter's wage and price guidelines in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In addition, Civiletti was responsible for the Justice Department's promulgation of open trial guidelines and for the development and publication of plans to prosecute white-collar crime. Civiletti also worked on improving national prison standards and sought more effective enforcement of criminal and anti-terrorism laws.

After leaving office in 1981, Civiletti returned to the Venable law firm. He has focused his practice on litigation, antitrust, banking, white-collar crime, government regulation, corporate governance, and health law. He has also conducted special investigations growing out of governmental proceedings and has been involved with a state impeachment resolution. In the 1990s, Civiletti has developed a practice in alternative dispute resolution, working successfully as a mediator, facilitator, master and arbitrator in many commercial and tort disputes.

Apart from his law practice, Civiletti has been a prominent and active member of local and national bar associations. In addition, he has served on many boards and committees. For example, he served as a member of the National Research Council Committee to Study National Cryptography Policy and as chair of the Maryland Governor's Commission on Welfare Policy. He was also a member of the Governor's Task Force on Alternatives to Incarceration and has served as chair or member on a number of task forces under several Maryland governors, including the funding of public education, drug abuse, and funding of the arts. Civiletti is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, American Law Institute and American College of Trial Lawyers and was the founding chair of Maryland Legal Services Corporation. He has also chaired the American Bar Association's Litigation Section and the Task Force on an International Criminal Court.