Julius Lewin was born in Oudtshoorn in 1907, and was educated at the University of Cape Town (B.A.1928, Ll.B. 1930). He practised at the Bar in Cape Town 1931-1933 and at the Middle Temple in London, 1936, later working as a Research Assistant and Tutor in the Colonial department of the university of London and as a lecturer at the London School of Economics.

From 1939-1967 he was a lecturer, later Senior Lecturer, later Associate Professor in the Department of Social Anthropology and African Government at the University of the Witwatersrand. He emigrated to England in 1968, first taking up a research fellowship at the University of Manchester. Later he was visiting professor of public law at Columbia University, New York, {1969) and then he worked at the North East London Polytechnic.

He was a prolific writer, producing 4 books and a great number of articles in British, American and South African journals and newspapers, mainly on the subjects of law and politics in South Africa. He died in 1984.