In My Bookbag: Your Witness

I love reading about crimes and criminal law. The issues are fascinating and the stories are sometimes pretty cool.

(One of my favorites is about a pre-trial proceeding where the judge decides that the defendant has been assigned to the wrong court because of his age. The defense lawyer interrupts to ask if this means the court has no jurisdiction. When the judge agrees that’s true, the lawyer immediatly grabs his client and marches him out of the courtroom and down the hall toward the exit from the courthouse. They almost made it to the street before some cop figured out a legal reason to stop them. I don’t know if that’s really a smart thing to do, but if I’d been the client it would have impressed the hell out of me.)

Anyway, this blogging thing just paid off again. A publicist just sent me a review copy of Your Witness: Lessons on Cross-Examination and Life From Great Chicago Trial Lawyers, edited by Steven F. Molo and James R. Figliulo.

It’s a collection of 50 short chapters, each written by a local lawyer. I don’t know the Chicago legal community at all, so I’ll have to trust the editors’ assertion that these people really are great lawyers (although, for example, Terry MacCarthy has been the Federal Defender for Chicago for 40 years so he probably knows a trick or two) but some of them sure are well-known names.

Dan Webb was U.S. Attorney during the Greylord investigation into corrupt judges in Cook County and a prosecutor in the Iran-Contra mess, R. Eugene Pincham was a prominant judge who ran for Mayor of Chicago, and as I write this, Sam Adam is awaiting a verdict for his client R. Kelly.

Some famous names also provided publicity blurbs for the book, including Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, Cook County States Attorney Dick Devine, Kenneth Starr, Andrew Napolitano, Bill Kurtis, and a whole bunch of lawyers whose names would probably be important to other lawyers. (David Boies? Brendan Sullivan? Evan Chesler?)

The book is dedicated “To all those who enjoy a good courtroom story…” which certainly includes me. I just hope the stories don’t rely on more legal knowledge than I have.

So far, I’ve been working my way through the surprisingly complicated frontmatter, which includes a forward by author Scott Turow (whose Presumed Innocent got me interested in reading courtroom stories), a notice that all the authors’ profits will be donated to the Chicago Bar Foundation, acknowledgements, the table of contents, a section describing how the contributing authors were chosen, an introduction by Steven Molo, and a curious “Cautionary Note”:

The stories and references in this book are based on real-world trial experience, but as with most good stories, they all may not be entirely precise. Sometimes names and dates have been changed, sometimes the details are generalized, and occasionally some stories have gotten better with age.

Heh. In other words, these stories are just a little too entertaining to be ruined by fact checking.

I can live with that. What I’m hoping for is the literary equivalent of spending a few hours listening to a bunch of experienced lawyers tell entertaining stories over dinner and drinks. It’s a good sign then, that the first story starts in Binion’s Restaurant, which on most nights could include a sampling of just about anyone from the federal trial bar.

That’s where the author first ran into a famous lawyer named Frank Oliver, whose courtroom dress included an amber amulet, a walking stick, and a cape… I think I’m really going to enjoy this.

Update: I did enjoy it.