Santa Clara Law Santa Clara Law Digital Commons Faculty Publications Faculty Scholarship 1-1-1999 Who is the Lawyer of the Century? Gerald F. Uelmen Santa Clara University School of Law,
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[email protected]. WHO IS THE LAWYER OF THE CENTURY? GeraldF. Uelmen* I. INTRODUCTION Every lawyer should have a hero. Mine has always been Clarence Darrow. As a high school student, it was reading Darrow's biography by Irving Stone,' and reading the closing arguments in his famous trials, 2 that inspired me to pursue a career as a lawyer. I dis- covered I was not alone. Thousands of other lawyers had found the same inspiration and also looked to Darrow as their hero. For fifteen years I kept a portrait of Darrow hanging over my desk, and I fre- quently found myself gazing up and asking, "Would Clarence Dar- row turn down this case? What would Clarence Darrow have to say about that?" That's what heroes are for: to inspire us and to serve as role models. Then, in 1993, Professor Geoffrey Cowan published an account of the 1912 Los Angeles trials of Clarence Darrow for jury bribery.3 The charges were brought in the wake of a case in which two labor organizers, the McNamara brothers, were accused of dynamiting the Los Angeles Times building on October 1, 1910.