If you want to understand trial lawyers, you have to recognize
their one enduring fantasy. They are knights in shining armor
rescuing damsels in distress.
They’ll tell you they’re “standing up for the little guy” or
“enforcing the Constitution” or “sending a message” or “teaching
the big guys a lesson.” But at bottom there’s always that one image
— a lonely woman, young, attractive, helpless, waiting to be
rescued by some hero with a law degree.
John O’Quinn is arguably the most successful trial lawyer in the
country. A big, handsome, charismatic Houston native with a golden
tongue, O’Quinn is a billionaire who — among other things —
personally bankrupted Dow-Corning over breast implants. He recently
won another billion-dollar verdict for a woman with a heart ailment
who allegedly died from taking Phen-fen.
I interviewed O’Quinn at length last September. He’s a ball of
fire, an Elmer Gantry of the courtroom who alternately soars and
whispers — even during a simple interview — in an effort to
convert any listener to his vision of the promised land.
That vision is that the world in which we live is ruled and
dominated by all-powerful, corrupt, and absolutely evil
corporations. “What kind of country are we living in?” he roared in
reprise of his closing arguments. “Was Lincoln just a fool
when he said this is a country of, by, and for the people? Or did
he say something that we can really believe in, that
little children can recite with pride in school?
No! This is a country of the corporations, by the
corporations, and for the rich, goddamned corporations. A
corporation can be a criminal — an absolute
criminal — and nobody can do a goddamned thing about it!” (He
actually used much more unpresentable language but asked me to
clean it up in deference to his local minister.)
After a while, I began to suspect there was something much more
than money involved. There was an obvious emotional imperative.
O’Quinn eventually explained it himself through “the picture.”
In an office filled with otherwise tasteful (and original)
Western art, there was one painting on the center wall that was so
bad I didn’t have the heart to mention it. Two Roman gladiators
battled each other in one of those romantic 19th century kitsch
settings laden with objects of allegory. It looked like something
bought in a pawnshop.
Soon enough, O’Quinn brought it up himself. “Do you like my
favorite painting?” he asked.
“What’s it supposed to be?” I responded neutrally.
“The gladiator on the left has one client,” he said proudly.
“He’s the rich man with his foot on the treasury. And the gladiator
on the right has one client. That’s the woman with the baby.
They’re both fighting to defend their clients.
“People ask me, ‘Why do you continue to do this, John? You’re
already a billionaire. You don’t have to do this anymore. Why do
you keep going back into the courtroom.’ And I tell them, ‘I do it
because of what’s in that painting. The gladiator on the right —
that’s me.”
You could see this again the other night when John Edwards, a
trial lawyer cut from the same mold, made his closing arguments.
Sure, Edwards talked about “strength” and “decisiveness” and paid
lip service to the idea that somewhere out there in the world there
are some pretty bad people in headdresses that we ought to do
something about some day. But when it came to defining his core
vision, here’s what Edwards said:
Tonight, as we celebrate in this hall, somewhere in
America, a mother sits at the kitchen table. She can’t sleep
because she’s worried she can’t pay her bills. She’s working hard
trying to pay her rent, trying to feed her kids, but she just can’t
catch up.
It didn’t use to be that way in her house. Her husband was
called up in the Guard. Now he’s been in Iraq for over a year. They
thought he was going to come home last month, but now he’s got to
stay longer.
She thinks she’s alone. But tonight in this hall and in your
homes, you know what? She’s got a lot of friends.
We want her to know that we hear her…
So, when you return home some night, you might pass a mother on
her way to work the late shift, you tell her: Hope is on the
way.
Let’s look at what’s going on here. First and foremost, we’ve
got a lonely woman. There’s a passing reference to Iraq and her
husband, but that’s basically to get him out of the house and out
of the picture. (Remember, these are the same people who brought
you the welfare system, also designed to get men out of the house
and out of the picture.)
She has no friends, no relatives, no religion, no community,
nothing to rely on. Her husband? Well, he doesn’t even seem to
write anymore. And so she sits by herself at the kitchen table,
waiting for someone to come along.
What a beautiful vision of America — a nation of lonely,
isolated women, in dire need of help, abandoned by everyone,
waiting for some handsome trial lawyer to come knocking on their
door.
Hope is on the way.
