When Alyza Lewin told people she was planning to start a law firm with her father, Nathan, they thought she was crazy.

They'd say, "Why would you want to do that? What if he doesn't like something you did?" Her reply: "You know what? That happened in high school already. I'd show him a paper I wrote and he would tell me it's a piece of garbage start again. Been there, done that."

Five years later, their District firm, Lewin and Lewin, has become a "magnet for all things Jewish," said Alyza Lewin. "This seems to be the phone number, the address for any ... legal issue tied to the Jewish community."

That's meant everything from representing apartment tenants whose landlords won't allow them to hang a mezuzah, to assisting government employees having trouble getting their security clearances renewed because of family ties to Israel, to helping rabbis ensure menorot can be displayed on public property during Chanukah.

In fact, during a break in an interview last week at their downtown D.C. office, Nathan Lewin took a call from a rabbi who needed assistance with a menorah issue in his New Jersey town.

The Lewins will be honored on Sunday for their work in the Jewish community with the Community Service Award by the Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse.

JCADA founder and past president Barbara Zakheim noted the great deal of time the Lewins estimate more than 30 percent the firm spends on pro bono work for social justice issues in the Jewish community.

"I wish the same could be said for a lot of lawyers out there," Zakheim said. She specifically noted Nathan Lewin's work 25 years ago writing the New York get law, which requires someone suing for divorce to submit an affidavit removing all barriers to remarriage. A similar bill was defeated in the Maryland legislature earlier this year, but Lewin pushed for its passage and testified on its behalf.

Nathan Lewin is literally a legend. This month, he was named one of 20 "Legends of the Bar" by Washingtonian magazine and, at 71, he points out he was the youngest on the list. Combining his time as an assistant to the solicitor general and private practice, he's argued 27 cases in front of the Supreme Court. And his daughter notes that there is no legal issue relating to the Jewish community that doesn't have his "fingerprints" on it.

For example, in 1972 he drafted the provision of the Civil Rights Act that protects one's religious observance or practice. Later in the decade, he wrote legislation that allowed federal workers to work "compensatory time" if they wanted to get time off to observe religious holidays.

Lewin tells the story of how he convinced the Carter administration to support the bill by relating his experience as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice John Harlan in 1961-62. He said that while most law clerks worked on Saturday, Harlan agreed that he could work Sundays so he could observe Shabbat.

On Friday afternoons in the winter, in the middle of the weekly meeting about cases, Lewin said Harlan would often look out the window and tell him, "Nat, the sun's going down, you better be going home."

So he told the Justice Department lawyers, "Do you think Justice Harlan thought he was violating the Establishment Clause of the Constitution when he sent me home?"

Lewin is still trying to create further protection for religious liberty. The firm has taken up the case, on appeal, of a Jewish parole officer in New York whose employer pressured him not to observe religious holidays by scheduling mandatory meetings and training sessions on those dates. They are arguing that the plaintiff faced a "hostile work environment" similar to the kind of environment considered actionable for sexual harassment and that the courts should recognize such a standard for religious practice.

Potomac resident Lewin, a member of Beth Sholom Congregation with his wife, Rikki, said he became the go-to guy for such cases because of his background as an Orthodox Jew, a Supreme Court clerk and his time as a deputy attorney general for civil rights in the last year of the Johnson administration.

Alyza Lewin, one of Lewin's two daughters and a member of Kesher Israel in the District with her husband, Eliezer Halbfinger, adds that her father is "always ready to push the envelope. He has the courage and conviction to stand for a principle and believe that if it's right, then maybe there's a chance it can succeed."

She said their partnership works very well because "the types of things we like to do complement each other."

"He is a master brief writer," she said. "On my 60th draft, I couldn't make it sound like he does on his first draft. ... I enjoy the people contact. ... I don't mind the negotiation, dealing with the opposing counsel" and she also handles firm management.

She added that "I'm not as eager to get up in court in front of the judges... ." Meanwhile, "he's delighted when we finally reach a point in litigation where it seems like the matter can be settled [and says], 'Great, now it's your turn, Alyza, settle this for us.' "

In addition, "I'm inclined to be more optimistic about cases than she is," he said. "She's a much more down to earth, feet on the ground person."

They admit to "some disagreements at times," but Nathan Lewin said that "it's great" to be able to work side-by-side with his daughter. And they do work a lot. The firm is just the two of them, a secretary and a part-time law clerk, so "neither one of us sleeps very much," said District resident Alyza Lewin who also has four children, ranging in age from 11 years old to 18 months, at home.

Before forming Lewin and Lewin, Nathan Lewin was a founding partner at Miller, Cassidy, Larocca & Lewin. Among his most well-known clients was Ed Meese, when the Reagan administration attorney general was the subject of an independent counsel investigation over charges of influence peddling.

"I'm the only person who represented a sitting attorney general being investigated in a criminal case," said Lewin, calling Meese "a very good guy with a bad public image."

Lewin's daughter recalls getting to know Meese when he and his wife were invited to the Lewin home for Passover. "My parents are not known for sedarim that end early," she said, and the Meeses stayed until the end, well into the early morning.

Lewin also was actress Jodie Foster's lawyer when she testified during the trial of John Hinckley for the shooting of President Ronald Reagan. In 1975, Lewin represented John Lennon on an appeal of a U.S. decision to deport him because of his previous conviction on drug possession charges in Great Britain. Lewin said he never met the Beatle, having been recruited to handle the appeal through Lennon's lawyer. And he joked that he probably shouldn't have cashed the check Lennon sent him to pay for his services because the autograph on it probably ended up being more valuable.

The Lewins currently represent the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and are working on a number of other Jewish-related cases, such as the Boim case, in which, on behalf of a victim of a Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, they successfully sued the Holy Land Foundation and two other U.S. charities for providing funding to the terrorist organization. They are waiting for the results of an appeal, but the legal theory they developed has been adopted by a number of other terror victims since.

Alyza Lewin said working on such cases "carries a certain responsibility with it." But they wonder who will keep up that tradition in the future.

"I don't see myself stepping in to fill his shoes they're a little too big," said Alyza Lewin, who demurred on her age. And her father notes that his daughter has "different interests than I do," but that "there ought to be someone" who can write a brief like the one he recently wrote for the Jewish parole officer.

While there are many more Orthodox Jews in the legal profession than when he began in the profession, they are working on things like securities and tax law and not "out ... to fight for Jewish rights," he said.

But he says he has no plans to retire yet.

"One of the reasons I wanted to create Lewin and Lewin," said Alyza Lewin, who graduated from New York University Law School in 1992, "is to enable my father to continue to ... do this kind of work for as long as he would like to do it."