JUSTICE FOR ALL
Jewish lawyer for Black Panthers brings Thurgood Marshall to life on-screen
ATTORNEY Michael Koskoff is being courted by Hollywood.
The 74-year-old litigator is a first-time screenwriter with “Marshall,” a new film about the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, out Friday.
Even more overwhelming for the man who boasts a 50-year background fighting criminal and civil-rights cases was the experience of screening his movie last week for retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
“[She] was very close to Thurgood Marshall,” Koskoff tells The Post. “She said that he, more than once, was the person who swayed her to change her mind [on important votes] — with his stories.”
Koskoff and Marshall, who died in 1993, have storytelling in common.
Nine years ago, a friend approached the Bridgeport, Conn.-based lawyer about a little-known case: the 1941 trial of Joseph Spell, a black chauffeur who was charged with raping his employer, a white socialite, in nearby Greenwich. Spell’s lawyers? A young Marshall and Samuel Friedman, a Jew.
“It was a great bond between an African-American and a Jewish guy at a time in history when both were subject to a lot of discrimination,” says Koskoff. “There was this great commonality of cause that I, myself, had experienced personally.”
His pal thought the case would make a great screenplay.
Koskoff agreed, and handed the idea off to his son, Jacob, and daughter, Sarah, who are both screenwriters. But they thought the material was a natural fit for their dad.
So, Koskoff went to work. The kids set their father up with Final Draft, a computer program used for screenwriting, and over the next two years, while still practicing law, he’d squeeze in “Marshall” moments when
ever he could. Koskoff drew on his vast experience representing AfricanAmericans in civil-rights cases — including members of the Black Panther Party in the 1970s. During one scene in the film, which was directed by Reginald Hudlin, a potential juror plainly admits his bias against both blacks and Jews. In reality, this moment didn’t happen to Marshall — it happened to Koskoff. “I actually had a juror come up in one of my Panther cases. He said he didn’t ‘think much of negroes’ — and he didn’t ‘like Jews either,’” the lawyer says.
Koskoff also had witnessed courtroom scenes being bungled on-screen one-too-many times.
“They get a lot wrong,” he says of Hollywood. “First of all, they don’t know how to ask questions. They don’t know how to make rulings. I don’t think I had ever seen, in any [film], a jury selection — one of the most important parts of the trial! You never see in [movies], really, the tactical decisions that are being made.”
The first draft of the script, which Jacob ultimately co-wrote, ended up in the hands of Friedman’s daughter, Lauren, who works as a therapist in New York, after the two were introduced. “She read the screenplay and she loved it,” Koskoff says. “She said, ‘Would you mind if I showed this to a friend of mine who’s a producer?’”
That friend was Paula Wagner, whose credits include “Mission: Impossible” and “Jack Reacher.”
Today, Koskoff is proud of the Marshall he’s showing the world.
“It was a side of him that was a footnote to history,” he says. “Most people who have an image of Thurgood Marshall have an image of a jowly, heavy, maybe avuncular [person]. But when he was young, he was a kick-ass, party-loving, courageous and brilliant lawyer.”
Koskoff’s most nerve-racking screening was for much of Marshall’s family, including his 90-year-old widow, Cecilia, whom many call Cissy.
“I’m sweating the whole time. ‘Are they gonna like it?’ ” Koskoff says.
They were thrilled with the portrayal of their relative, who successfully won a not-guilty verdict for Spell.
“I went over after the screening, and I leaned over to Mrs. Marshall and said, ‘Cissy, what did you think of the movie?’ ” Koskoff says. “She called me over real close, and she said, ‘ That man who played Thurgood. He’s a good actor and a very handsome man.
“‘But not nearly as handsome as Thurgood was.’ ”