Evan J Wallach
Evan Wallach, the youngest of three sons of Albert and Sara Wallach, was born in 1949 in Superior, Arizona, where his father was a copper mill worker. The family moved frequently, and he attended a different school every year for his first six years of primary education. Eventually, the family settled in Northern California where Al Wallach was employed as a mining engineer, and Sara Wallach developed a substantial reputation as an etcher and fine artist.
Evan graduated from Acalanes High School in Lafayette, California where he wrestled, played practical jokes and otherwise generally cut classes. Given his resulting grades, it was unsurprising he enrolled at a local Junior College, Diablo Valley, where he did surprisingly well academically, and was news editor and film critic for the college paper. In late 1968, after his brother Andrew was wounded when he stepped on a land mine during USMC service in Vietnam, Evan enlisted in the United States Army. After a year of training as a Radio teletype Net Supervisor (and including time spent profitably at the Drill Sergeant School at Ft. Ord), he volunteered for, and was assigned to service in Vietnam. He was posted to the 8th Engineer Battalion of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) which due to its unfortunate lack of radio teletypes assigned him as a Terrain Reconnaissance Sergeant where he developed a life long love for flying in helicopters with doors open and his legs handing over the side. When he left he was awarded the Bronze Star, and the Air Medal.
He returned Stateside, attended the University of Arizona from 1971-73, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in journalism having carried more units in one semester than anyone in the then known history of the University. He attended the University of California at Berkeley from 1973-1976, a school he found particularly attractive since it was free to California veterans, and he could live at home with his parents performing only light chores.
In 1976 he took a job at a then 12 lawyer firm in Las Vegas, Nevada, which when he left in 1995 had grown to a hundred lawyers. During his time there he built a practice representing media entities and doing political work for the Nevada Democratic Party including Representative, and then Senator, Harry Reid. In that time he took three sabbaticals, one to obtain an LlB in Public International Law from the University of Cambridge where he gained a taste for international rule of law and beans on toast; one to serve for two years as Senator Reid’s General Counsel and Public Policy Advisor, and one to voluntarily serve on active duty for five months at the Pentagon as an Attorney/Advisor in the International Affairs Division of the Office of the Judge Advocate of the Army. While there he dealt in particular with prisoner of war and captured enemy war material issues, and authored the war crimes investigation of Saddam Hussein and his inner circle. For that service he was awarded a Meritorious Service Medal.
Back in Las Vegas Wallach was active in the community, teaching at various times, journalism and international law, serving as a guest columnist in various newspapers, a political commentator on local television and radio, participated in a night trap shooting league, and working for some time as a weekly restaurant critic. In 1992 he married Dr. Katherine C. Tobin, and they are still.
In 1995 he was appointed to the United States Court of International Trade where he wrote a considerable body of trade and customs opinions, and chaired various court committees in furtherance of the transition from a paper clerical to an electronic court filing environment. In his free time he taught seminars in the law of war at New York Law School, Brooklyn Law School, George Mason Law School, and the University of Muenster. He also published numerous law review articles dealing with various aspects of the subject.
In 2011 he was appointed to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He is currently an Adjunct Law Professor in National Security Law at George Washington University Law School.
