Trial Lawyer

In the coming weeks and months, we will be hearing many times - with utter horror, no doubt - that John Edwards was a trial lawyer. It appears to be the Official Approved GOP Attack Point.

Two points:

1) The Republicans are trying to spin a positive into a negative. Everytime Edwards talks about the law, he's GOOD. And the ability to explain laws and their ramifications is a major positive for a legislator, whose JOB is to make and pass law. In the Senate, he has more than once taken GOP bills and subjected them to a brutal legal analysis, exposing the rancid underbelly of the proposed law.

2) As a lawyer, his strength has been filing grievances against some appallingly negligent near-criminal corporations.

This is from the Washington Monthly, emphasis mine:

"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 Dayton. 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 Kirby earned the Association of Trial Lawyers of America's national award for public service."

In the words of President Worthless: "Bring It On."