Samuel Spital: Civil Rights Lawyer

By: Alberto Aquino

Samuel Spital is a young lawyer who gained a new voice and vocation after his astounding experiences at Harvard Law School.

Spital is a Chesterfield Smith Fellow at Holland & Knight, one of the largest law firms in the world. He received his bachelor’s degree in 2000 from Harvard University and his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2004. Spital currently works in a non-profit community service team focused on voting rights, the death penalty work, and prison rights. “The most satisfying part is to feel like, even if it doesn’t work out, you really make a contribution in someone’s life,” Spital said.

“I have a client in Louisiana who in my opinion faces a lot of harassment from prison officials,” said Spital. “There have been small changes and it has made such a difference for him to have someone advocating for him. Obviously, it won’t change that he is in a single cell 22 hours a day, but you get to see the effect it has on him and it is really special.”


Spital grew a love for law during his days in college. “I really liked it,” he said about Harvard. “I liked that it was big, that there was a lot of events and there were lots of speakers.” There, he heard an inspiring lecture by Lani Guinier, the influential civil rights scholar who was once nominated by Bill Clinton for assistant attorney general but withdrawn under pressure from conservative media who painted her as a “reverse racist.” “Afterwards I told her that she inspired me to become a civil rights lawyer.” Spital said.

In college, Spital also met and worked with Laurence Henry Tribe, a constitutional law expert and Supreme Court justice. His training led to clerkships with Harry T. Edwards of the United States Court of Appeals, and John Paul Stevens of the Supreme Court of the United States.

“He's more than his profession or what school he attended,” said Martha Spital, supervising clinical social worker at the Jewish Board of Family and Children Services and mother of Samuel Spital. “He's a great guy not because of his accomplishments but because of whom he is inside and the values he lives by.”

“We had the pleasure to meet one of the federal judges he clerked for and he told us this story,” said Spital’s mother, Martha. “When he saw Sam's resume he wasn't sure he was going to interview him for the highly competitive position. His resume was so stellar he figured Sam would probably not be a nice guy to work with. Sam was in the area so he decided to call this judge to see if he could meet with him. The judge agreed and was so impressed with how personable he is that he offered Sam the job on the spot.”

“I think he is a very good person and he cares about people,” says Dr. Aaron Spital, Elmhurst Hospital Center and father of Samuel Spital. “He believes in doing the right thing and I think that’s his strongest strength.”