Yuri Schmidt
Yuri Markovich Schmidt (; 10 May 1937 – 12 January 2013) was a Russian human rights lawyer known for defending dissidents since the 1970s. Schmidt was born in Leningrad. He was a member of the Mikhail Khodorkovsky defense team from 2004, and headed the legal team for several years before his death in 2013, following a long battle with cancer. Biography. Yuri Schmidt was born in Leningrad in 1937, while the USSR was going through the period of the Stalinist great purge. His father, declared as the "enemy of the people", was imprisoned in the gulag for 16 years. Schmidt  began studying law and graduated from Saint Petersburg State University in 1960.He was not one of the lawyers considered "reliable" by the regime and pleaded in criminal proceedings for 30 years. In 1986, Schmidt was struck off the bar association. After pleading his case, he was reinstated a year later.