Famed attorney Michael Fawer’s rites are planned for Friday
MICHAEL SETH FAWER, a highly regarded and legendary New Orleans criminal defense attorney died on Wednesday, April 8, 2026 just prior to the onset of the final two days of Passover. He was 90.
MICHAEL SETH FAWER
Born in the Bronx, he was a graduate of Cornell University and Columbia Law School. Upon graduation from law school, he moved to Washington D.C. where he worked as a trial attorney in the Department of Justice’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Section. In 1963 he became an Assistant United States Attorney under Bob Morgenthau in the Southern District of New York where he served as Chief of Special Prosecutions from 1965-1968.
After spending two years in private practice, he moved to New Orleans in 1971, where he joined the firm of Kullman, Lang, Inman and Bee. Three years later, in 1974, he opened his own office specializing in criminal defense. In a career spanning almost 60 years Fawer tried over 125 cases in federal and state courts in New York, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Alabama and Nevada, and argued numerous appeals including one before the U.S. Supreme Court.
During his career he served as trial counsel in a number of highly publicized cases, including the trials of Governor Edwin W. Edwards, Charles Roemer, Aaron Mintz, Mose Jefferson and Rene Gil Pratt in Louisiana, Charles Evers and Federal Judge Walter Nixon in Mississippi, and Danny Faulkner in Texas. After the United States Supreme Court reversed the capital conviction in Kyles v. Whitely, he retried the case. After three successive hung juries, the State dismissed the charges against Curtis Kyles. For his work in the Kyles case, he was awarded the Sam Dalton Capital Advocacy Award by the Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Fawer’s greatest courtroom skill was as a cross examiner. In the words of one journalist, James Gill, “watching Mike Fawer in court was a journalist’s dream. Brilliant, brash and witty, he thrilled to his task, maneuvering like a fencer with a foil.” As another put it more pungently “had Portia been bred with a pit bull, Mike Fawer could have been their whelp.” Despite openly clashing with a number of judges in the courtroom, he was admired by any number of superb judges before whom he appeared.
On the verge of retirement in 2018, Fawer wrote about his career inside and outside the courtroom, eventually publishing his book “From the Bronx to the Bayou” in 2019.
He had a love of tennis, duck hunting, horse racing, poker, philately and the theater. For a five-year period, he promoted Broadway musical theater in New Orleans. While living in Covington, he became convinced that St. Tammany Parish needed a bagel shop. The Bagel Place opened in early 1996 but closed within 18 months. He insisted at the time that his crazy Irish baker made the best bagels south of New York City.
A founding member of the only synagogue in St. Tammany, the Northshore Jewish Congregation, Fawer was fiercely Jewish and was one of its early presidents as well as a longtime member of its board of trustees.
Upon semi-retiring in 2019, he began taking a variety of courses at Loyola and Tulane. This was in addition to learning Yiddish online. Philosophically, he regarded reading and learning as a great way to spend your days while you are still breathing.
He is survived by his four beloved children, Jonathan (Leslie), Melanie (Christian), Alexandra (Thomas), and Jessica (Justin), seven grandchildren and his companion of over 16 years, Merry McSwain.
A funeral service was held on Friday, April 10, 2026, at Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home, 5100 Pontchartrain Blvd. Rabbi Mendel Ceitlin of Chabad Center of Metairie officiated. A private burial alongside his parents followed at Ahavas Sholom Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Northshore Jewish Congregation, 1403 North Causeway Blvd., Mandeville, LA 70471
