Near the end of his life, Judge John H. Pratt of the District Court was interviewed by his good friend, the legendary Jake Stein, in an oral history for the Historical Society. In the words of Judith S. Feigin, who has prepared a summary of the oral history, the sessions read as “chat between friends” – relaxed, surprisingly gossipy, and fun. Under Stein’s conversational questioning,
Judge Pratt tells war stories, and he speaks fondly – and not so fondly – of his judicial colleagues and various icons of the D.C. bar. His topics range from Alger Hiss, to the Harvard Divinity School, to his own reputation as “pro-government” in criminal cases, to the “atrocity” (his word) of the Sentencing Guidelines. All told, writes Feigin, Judge Pratt’s oral history is “candid, colorful, and blunt.”