Atticus Finch

Last updated on: July 7, 2004 at 5:17 am by Fred Clark

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Atticus Finch 2004-07-07T05:17:46-04:00 Fred Clark

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Atticus Finch, like John Edwards, was a trial lawyer. So was Fiorello LaGuardia. So was Ralph Nader, back when he was widely admired. So was Thurgood Marshall. So was Abraham Lincoln.

"Most people can distinguish between a good trial lawyer and a bad trial lawyer," Joshua Green wrote in this prescient 2001 Washington Monthly article.

Green traces the miserable failure of former Sen. Lauch Faircloth's attempts to attack John Edwards because of his profession in the 1998 North Carolina Senate race. The Republican incumbent spent millions on attack ads that basically said, "Lawyer, lawyer, lawyer."

But based on Edwards' actual career, what voters heard was "Advocate, advocate, advocate." Faircloth only succeeded in painting his opponent as a champion of the people.

Yet, Green writes:

… the lesson Republicans took away from the race was that Faircloth hadn't attacked lawyers nearly enough. "Lauch went at it very half-heartedly and he blinked," says a prominent GOP consultant who advised Faircloth. "He didn't identify him strongly enough as a plaintiffs' lawyer," says Black. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result, then clearly lawyers like John Edwards drive GOP operatives crazy.

Here's hoping this craziness continues. Hints from the first 24 hours following John Kerry's announcement of Edwards as his running mate indicate that it will. As Green notes:

Edwards is uniquely situated to refute Bush's attacks on trial lawyers and tort reform because he's the living embodiment of how a trial lawyer can serve a regulatory function in the face of misbehaving corporations, cities, and professionals. Indeed, attacking him is one of the surest ways for Bush to inadvertently highlight his own greatest vulnerability: the perception among voters that he's a shill for corporate America.

It is true that Americans despise lawyers, but only until they need a good one on their side. And that's really the question Americans ask about any given lawyer: Whose side is he on? Prompting Americans to ask that question about John Edwards would not be a wise move for his opponents in this campaign.

Green recounts what is probably the most famous story from Edwards' career as a lawyer. The more his Republican opponents attack him during the campaign, the more famous this story is likely to become:

The defining case in Edwards' legal career wrapped up that same year. In 1993, a five-year-old girl named Valerie Lakey had been playing in a Wake County, N.C., wading pool when she became caught in an uncovered drain so forcefully that the suction pulled out most of her intestines. She survived but for the rest of her life will need to be hooked up to feeding tubes for 12 hours each night.

Edwards filed suit on the Lakeys' behalf against Sta-Rite Industries, the Wisconsin corporation that manufactured the drain. Attorneys describe his handling of the case as a virtuoso example of a trial layer bringing a negligent corporation to heel. Sta-Rite offered the Lakeys $100,000 to settle the case. Edwards passed.

Before trial, he discovered that 12 other children had suffered similar injuries from Sta-Rite drains. The company raised its offer to $1.25 million. Two weeks into the trial, they upped the figure to $8.5 million. Edwards declined the offer and asked for their insurance policy limit of $22.5 million. The day before the trial resumed from Christmas break, Sta-Rite countered with $17.5 million. Again, Edwards said no.

On January 10, 1997, lawyers from across the state packed the courtroom to hear Edwards' closing argument, "the most impressive legal performance I have ever seen," recalls [Mike] Dayton [editor of North Carolina Lawyers Weekly]. Three days later, the jury found Sta-Rite guilty and liable for $25 million in economic damages (by state law, punitive damages could have tripled that amount). The company immediately settled for $25 million, the largest verdict in state history. For their part, Edwards and [law partner David] Kirby earned the Association of Trial Lawyers of America's national award for public service.

Bonus fact: John Edwards' first job after graduating law school was with Lamar Alexander's firm in Tennessee.

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