Candidates' Cases: A Hidden Rat, Passionate Arguments, Gutsy Moves
The legal backgrounds of the presidential candidates with law degrees may provide insights into their approaches to the presidency.
Six candidates have law degrees, the New York Times reports. They are Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Rudolph Giuliani, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson. All but Romney have practiced law.
The newspaper says Clinton has a “commercial litigator’s polish and caution.” In her first jury trial, she represented a food company accused of canning part of a rat along with some pork and beans. She argued there was no real harm because the plaintiff didn’t actually eat the rat. A jury awarded only token damages.
Giuliani and Thompson were both prosecutors, but their styles differed greatly. Giuliani was hard-driving and passionate, while Thompson was more folksy. “Giuliani’s moral certainty is reflected in his crusades against government corruption, organized crime and insider trading when he was the United States attorney in Manhattan,” the newspaper reports. In one corruption trial, a judge ordered jurors to ignore parts of Giuliani’s closing argument because he went over the top.
Edwards was a successful trial lawyer before entering politics, reflecting his “populism and appetite for risk,” the newspaper says. In his first case, he advised his client to turn down a $750,000 settlement offer. His instinct was right: The plaintiff received a $3.7 million verdict.
Obama “seemed ambivalent about the law,” the newspaper says. He focused on civil rights work and also taught constitutional law.
