Louis Nizer, 92; Attorney, Best-Selling Author : Law: Legendary trial lawyer is remembered as a Renaissance man. One of his cases argued before Supreme Court led to the movie rating system.

Louis Nizer, the legendary trial lawyer who took on some of the most formidable cases of the postwar period and who wrote 10 best-selling books, including the world-renowned “My Life in Court,” died Thursday at Beth Israel Hospital of kidney failure. He was 92 years old and lived in Manhattan.

Nizer, who founded the firm of Phillips, Nizer, Benjamin, Krim & Ballon, was one of only a handful of courtroom lawyers to emerge as well-known figures. For more than 65 years he attracted national attention in headline jury trials and argued hundreds of cases across the nation, in foreign countries and the U.S. Supreme Court--losing, in his words, “very, very few” of them.

He argued the issue of obscenity in movies before the U.S. Supreme Court as general counsel to the Motion Picture Assn. of America. The case ultimately led to the establishment of the movie rating system.

Nizer also became a subject of the entertainment industry. Actors Van Heflin, George C. Scott and Ed Asner portrayed him in stage, screen and television adaptations of his book “A Case of Libel.”

Nizer’s other books included “The Jury Returned,” “The Implosion Conspiracy,” “Reflections Without Mirrors” and “Catspaw.”

His talent for public speaking emerged when he was a child in the Williamsburgh, Brooklyn, section of New York City. Only two years after graduating from Columbia Law School in 1924, he founded the firm that still bears his name.

The firm acquired an international reputation as it grew from its traditional roots in litigation and entertainment law into a full service law firm with offices in New York and affiliates overseas employing more than 200 people. He remained the firm’s honorary chairman and senior partner until his death.

“Louis Nizer was this century’s quintessential Renaissance man,” said Perry Galler, the firm’s managing partner. “He taught and inspired a whole generation of younger lawyers in the firm and around the country. He emphasized that the law is a noble and demanding profession requiring a total commitment to both the highest ethical standards and the clients’ best interests. Despite his extraordinary public prominence, he was always accessible to each generation of lawyers he groomed to carry on the traditions of the firm he founded.”

Nizer believed that no case was ever won with words but by building a “solid foundation of facts.” His books, which he wrote longhand, reinforced his beliefs.

No trial was routine. Each was different from any other, with a new cast, director and plot. Every case was as exciting as the first he ever tried. For Nizer, his most exciting case was always the next one.

Nizer first came to prominence after his involvement in a number of highly publicized cases after World War II.

One of his most renowned cases was the libel suit of John Henry Faulk. Faulk, a popular CBS radio personality, had been libeled in 1956 by AWARE, a self-appointed anti-Communist group that “cleared” performers for sponsors. When Faulk opposed the group, the organization branded him a Communist.

In 1962, Nizer won a record $3.5-million in damages against the group, helping to end blacklisting in the entertainment industry.

Scott starred in the 1975 CBS presentation of “Fear of Trial,” a docudrama about the Faulk case.

Nizer’s involvement with the arts also extended to his personal life. Not only at home in the courtroom, he excelled as an author, painter and musician.

He wrote rather than dictated his books, he said, “because the rhythm of dictation is different from the rhythm of reading.”

All his manuscripts were written on legal pads so he could see “that the balance was good.”

Nizer was a composer and member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, whose record, “Songs for You,” was released by RCA. He was also nominated for a Grammy award for a recording in which he analyzed decisions by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

He was a prizewinning artist, and the walls of his office on West 52nd Street were brightened by several of his works. Nizer’s paintings were exhibited at the Hammer Gallery in New York, the Boston Museum, the Galerie Heritage in Toronto, the Permanent Art Gallery of the American Bank & Trust Co., New York, and at the Museum of Art, Science & Industry in Bridgeport, Conn.

Born in London in 1902 and raised in Brooklyn from the age of 2, he graduated from Columbia College in 1922 and from Columbia Law School in 1924. At college, he won the Curtis Oratorical Prize twice, the highest honor given for oratory and original composition.

Through the years, Presidents approached him about becoming a judge and even attorney general, but he steadfastly refused.

“I enjoy the ardor, and also the freedom, of a law office practice,” he would say.

But he was active in politics, from serving in the “kitchen Cabinet” of New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia to writing speeches for President Lyndon B. Johnson.

His public prominence was underlined when he was asked to write the analysis of the Warren Commission’s report on President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, which was appended to the study when it was released in book form. He was an informal counselor to several U.S. Presidents and foreign heads of state, including Indira Gandhi and several Israeli prime ministers.

Nizer also lectured on various legal subjects at many universities and bar associations and was the recipient of honorary doctor of law degrees from Pepperdine University and Iowa Wesleyan College. In 1988, Nizer was honored by Tel Aviv University School of Law by the dedication of a new library wing bearing his name.

He was the recipient of the Literary Father of the Year award and the Golden Plate award of the American Academy of Achievement.

In 1939, he married Mildred Mantel Wollins, who died in 1993. He is survived by his children, Terry and Tony Wollins of Boca Raton, Fla., and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.