The only son of Rear Admiral Maurice H. Rindskopf and Sylvia Lubow Rindskopf, he was born in 1942 in Connecticut. His father, then a lieutenant commander, was serving on the United States Ship Drum in the Pacific Ocean theatre of World World War II and did not learn of his birth until three weeks later.
He attended New London High School, where he was elected senior class president for the 1959–1960 school year, and graduated as valedictorian. He completed his bachelor"s degree in 1964 and then entered Yale Law School.
The two married in 1968. In his short career, Rindskopf represented clients in a number of notable cases, including several before the Supreme Court. One of his appearances before the Supreme Court was for Socialist Workers Party presidential candidate Linda Jenness in Jenness v.
Fortson (403 United States. 431 (1971)) in an unsuccessful challenge to Georgia"s ballot access standards.
Rindskopf also took on some cases relating to the military. In April 1969 he represented Private first class
Dennis Davis, who received an undesirable discharge two weeks before the end of his two-year tour in response to his publication of a clandestine newspaper known as The Last Harass. He represented Vietnam War protester Thomas Jolley before the Board of Immigration Appeals and the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (441 F.2d 1245 (1971)), unsuccessfully arguing that Jolley, who had renounced his United States. citizenship in Canada after receiving a draft notice and then returned to the United States, should not be subject to deportation.
Rindskopf was driving on Georgia State Route 197 west of Clayton on October 9, 1971 when his car ran off the road and overturned, killing him.
She also took over her husband"s caseload of more than 100 cases with the Incorporated. Fund. One of the more notable of these was Gooding v.
Later that year he defended Jack K. Riley, an African American soldier stationed at Fort Bragg convicted of distribution of anti-war literature in what he referred to as a "frame-up". In 1970 he defended four more soldiers on similar charges of promoting disloyalty.
He would go on to Yale University, where he was a member of the Yale Bulldogs swimming and diving team under captain Mike Austin.
