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Clarence Darrow: Attorney For The Damned (2011)

by John A. Farrell(Favorite Author)

4 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0385522584 (ISBN13: 9780385522588)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Doubleday

review 1: This is a wonderful book about a very contradictory man. Darrow defended everyone including the poor, the guilty, labor agitators, murderers, Chicago mobsters, railroad tycoons and anarchists. The author quotes extensively from his stirring court presentations which sometimes went on for several days and which he delivered without notes. He had a great gift for rhetoric. According to the author he was a master showman and brought tears to the eyes of some jurors and sometimes even the judge. He frequently appalled his friends by what they saw as his inconsistent philosophy. The book is entertaining as well as thoroughly researched and documented.
review 2: The first third if this biography is a bit plodding but once we get into Darrow's first major case... mores the book becomes very interesting. The Gilded Age was a time when being a labor lawyer meant being a criminal defense attorney. The incidents of violence between labor and management are startling in how they are forgotten today. Even the degree of savagery with respect to the racial lynchings is gone (with the one exception of Emmitt Till). I work near the LA Times building for example and had no idea there was a bombing that killed 21 there 100 years ago. At any rate, the book does focus on quoting extensively from Darrow's trial examinations and closing arguments, things that are elucidating from the standpoint of a lawyer. I knew very little about him and regret not learning about him earlier so he could have been a role model in my career. For nonlawyers, his trial soliloquies are red meat for liberals, classical or modern. less

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