Editing Gerald Posner (section)

== Early life and education ==
Posner was born in San Francisco, California, the only child of Jerry and Gloria Posner. His father was Jewish and his mother Catholic,<ref>{{cite book |title=God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican|last= Posner|first= Gerald|year=2015 |publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn= 978-1-416-57657-0|page=xii}}</ref> and both were native San Franciscans. His father was a labor union official.

Posner was raised Catholic.<ref>{{Citation
| url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z2vCXKfcYY
| title = Roger Stone - Stone Cold Truth Radio (Nov. 26th, 2016)
| time = 1:16:40
| access-date = November 27, 2016
| work  = Stone Cold Truth
| publisher = [[YouTube]]
| date = November 26, 2016
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://finance.yahoo.com/news/a-look-inside-the-mysterious-vatican-bank-183740667.html|title=Vatican Bank may be too corrupt for Pope Francis to save: Posner|date=February 4, 2015 |access-date=October 6, 2016}}</ref> He was educated at [[St. Ignatius College Preparatory]] and graduated summa cum laude from the [[University of California, Berkeley]] in 1975. In 1978, he earned his [[Juris Doctor|J.D.]] from the [[University of California, Hastings College of the Law]], where he served as the associate executive editor for the university's ''Law Review''.<ref>{{Cite web| title=Hastings Community (Summer 1995) | url=http://repository.uchastings.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1091&context=alumni_mag | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140908041717/http://repository.uchastings.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1091&context=alumni_mag | archive-date=2014-09-08}}</ref>

At age 23, he joined the law firm, [[Cravath, Swaine & Moore]], as one of the youngest attorneys ever hired by the firm.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-posner/ | work=The Huffington Post | first=Gerald | last=Posner | title=Gerald Posner}}</ref> In 1980, he went into private practice with a partner. In 1981, he represented Deborah Ann Fountain, Miss New York State, against the Miss America pageant after Fountain was disqualified for padding her bra.<ref>{{cite news |author1=AP |title=Beauty Contestant Seeks to Reverse Disqualification |work=Santa Rosa Press Democrat |date=May 21, 1981 |page=15A}}</ref> He left the law in 1986, when his first book, about Nazi [[Josef Mengele]]'s life on the run, was published by McGraw Hill.