Although he still aspired to become a law professor, Levi says he wanted his teaching to be informed by practical experience; he decided that becoming an assistant U.S. attorney would allow him to get intensive trial experience in a short time.

Knowing that few Supreme Court clerks were hired as prosecutors, Levi calls it a stroke of luck to meet Donald Ayer, who was at the Court recruiting clerks for the firm he worked for at the time. A former clerk of Justice Rehnquist, Ayer was set to become the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California, and was just starting to contemplate building that office.

“Two months before I was scheduled to start work as U.S. attorney, it was like manna from heaven to meet David and have him tell me that he really wanted to come to work as an assistant U.S. attorney,” says Ayer. “As an AUSA he was terrific. He distinguished himself in every way – in the quality and reliability of his work, and in the insights that he had, and his skills in the courtroom. He gained a reputation very quickly as an unusual individual who people looked upon with fondness and great respect.”

Levi says he loved being a prosecutor. “It’s tremendously exciting to pull together a case, to be part of the investigation of it, and then to try it before a jury. This all takes place in a context in which you are constantly watching your conduct to make sure that you are giving the government vigorous representation, yet are not overstepping. If you are too passive you aren’t likely to make mistakes, but you also aren’t likely to be doing your job terribly well. Yet there is nothing more dangerous than an overly aggressive prosecutor who has lost his or her sense of bearings, or the overall picture. The whole point, after all, is to preserve the social fabric, not tear it.”

Levi recalls one early fraud case in particular. It was known as “the Golden Plan,” and had grown out of rampant real estate speculation in California in the 1970s. Levi spent hundreds of hours in the grand jury investigating the case and pulling it together. “It was challenging intellectually in deciding how to prosecute that case,” Levi says. All the while, he was trying others, learning how to present and argue a case efficiently and persuasively, relishing what he refers to as “the lawyer’s art.”

“It’s rhetoric, it’s drama, it’s storytelling, and it’s also law. You have to know how to enter something into evidence: Do I need to authenticate it; do I enter into stipulations? You have a huge number of decisions to make.” He found that certain aspects of the work were reminiscent of history. “A prosecutor tells the story of what happened in the past, sometimes many years earlier, sometimes months earlier. It wasn’t dissimilar from what I enjoyed doing in my academic life.”

After more than three years as an assistant U.S. attorney, Levi resolved to return to the teaching market and started “calling around” about openings. A late night telephone call changed his plans.

“I was dozing on the couch with my infant son – my second – sleeping on my stomach, when my wife said, ‘There’s somebody on the phone who says he’s Senator [Pete] Wilson, but I think it’s one of your friends, pretending.’ I took the call very warily.” In fact, then-Senator Wilson asked an astonished Levi if he would be willing to become U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California. On Wilson’s recommendation, Levi was appointed U.S. attorney in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan.

“He stepped into the job and he was a fantastic U.S. attorney,” says retired Eastern District Magistrate Judge Peter Nowinski, who was first assistant U.S. attorney under Ayer and then under Levi, and who had also been in the running for the top position. “Frankly, I was surprised, because he had no administrative background, relatively few trials under his belt, and was probably one of the youngest U.S. attorneys ever appointed. But he commanded respect immediately. He has a wonderful manner that suits the leadership role perfectly.” Levi credits the support of the people in his office, like his close friend Nowinski, for helping him successfully take over an office of 35 attorneys and a support staff twice that size.

“They all wanted me to succeed, because my success was their success. I saw my job as supporting them and helping them become as productive and mission-oriented as possible. When you are working with people and they have a mission and are public spirited, then little annoyances tend to move out of the way and you keep your eye on the ball. It was a wonderful time in my life.”

Overseeing an office that served a sprawling, fast-growing, and culturally diverse area, Levi hired 20 additional prosecutors during his four-year tenure. Sacramento attorney George O’Connell, at the time an assistant U.S. attorney and later Levi’s successor as U.S. attorney, observes that his friend’s “top-notch” hires reflected a belief that prosecutors need to both understand and reflect the diverse cultural communities they serve.

“David always sought very high standards, credentials, and people, particularly for a job that I know he valued himself when he was an assistant, and that he rightly viewed as being a very challenging job. He also knew that if you just looked hard enough that there were people who would fit the diversity bill and who were more than qualified to be first-rate assistant U.S. attorneys.

The number of women and minorities in the office increased significantly during his tenure. His hires were clearly intended to achieve that balance of a highly qualified person but a person who brings the perspectives of different communities to the job.”

As U.S. attorney, Levi continued to partner with O’Connell in directing the largest public corruption investigation ever undertaken in California. An undercover probe of influence peddling in the state capital that had started in 1984, the operation involved the creation of a fictitious company headquartered in Mobile, Alabama, that sought to import Gulf shrimp to California. An FBI agent posing as the owner of a family-owned company lobbied Sacramento legislators, seeking a bill that benefited the enterprise, and secretly audio- or videotaping the meetings.

“We guided him to meet with people in the legislature who, based on information we had, would attempt to extort him. And that was what happened — he was asked for bribes and paid them,” Levi says. “We had to learn how the legislative system worked, what lobbyists did, and even draft legislation for [the agent] to discuss with legislators.” The investigators did their job so well that their phony bill passed in the state legislature, “because we didn’t get approval from the FBI Director quickly enough to pay an additional bribe that was required to kill it,” Levi recalls with a laugh. With the permission of Justice Department officials at the highest level, the prosecutors brought then California Governor George Deukmejian in on their operation, and he vetoed the legislation without exposing the broader investigation.

The investigation became public when search warrants were issued for offices in the state capital, at which point “people started coming out of the woodwork and detailing instances when [State Senator Joseph Montoya] had tried to extort them. We put together a RICO indictment that had many, many instances in it, in addition to the undercover example, making for a very strong case.” Montoya’s 1988 trial, which Levi tried with two colleagues, represented the first prosecution and conviction of a sitting state senator.

“To be involved in a trial of that magnitude, where one feels that an entire complex investigation and the credibility of the government’s anti-corruption program is on the line, is a fascinating experience to have, but not one that you would want to repeat every year,” Levi says. “Many cases, both civil and criminal, have huge consequences for people, whether you are defending them or prosecuting them. The consequences can be enormous. And the pressure that puts on the lawyers is enormous. Having the personal skills to cope with that kind of pressure is something that lawyers who want to practice at the highest level and handle these kinds of exciting cases need to have.”