Courtroom Crusaders

Courtroom Crusaders

By Mark Litwak

In Courtroom Crusaders, Mark Litwak draws in-depth portraits of American lawyers from different branches of the law, showing that the law can be a daring and adventurous profession for people with the courage, brains, and determination to defy stereotypes and go their independent ways.

To illustrate his thesis, Litwak, who is a lawyer himself, has chosen subjects from different locales throughout the nation. From Massachusetts, there is Edward M. Swartz, also known as Fast Eddie, who is an attorney of last resort, someone clients go to after other lawyers have told them their cases are hopeless. Time and again he has obtained millions of dollars for his clients, making himself rich in the process, by representing ordinary men and women injured by the products of big business.

In Minneapolis, Ron Meshbesher endures the public's wrath for defending clients accused of committing heinous crimes. In the case Litwak describes in detail, Meshbesher defends a man who kidnapped and held as sex slave his former high school algebra teacher, claiming he loved her.

In New York, three you prosecutors go after the bosses of the Mafia, marking the first time the Mob was charged with being an ongoing criminal conspiracy.

From Albuquerque, New Mexico, there is Bill Parnall, a juvenile defense lawyer who nurses dreams of becoming a country and western music star.

And in Los Angeles, Nancy Mintie, the director of the Inner City Law Center, works on Skid Row representing the rights of the homeless and those on welfare.

Here, also, is the most detailed account ever written of the life and battles of consumer advocate Ralph Nader, as well as a somewhat startling picture of what legal life is like in Alaska, where attorneys fly private planes to remote parts of the state to participate in the contemporary version of frontier justice.

By the time readers finish the book, they not only will have met a group of fascinating people; they will also have a much clearer idea of how the law works in practice as well as in theory.

1. On Skid Row
2. Fast Eddie
3. Deadly Arrow
4. The Hallucinating Kidnapper
5. In the Wilds of Alaska
6. Nader and His Raiders
7. Busting the Mafia
8. The Author
9. Sources
10. Acknowledgments
11. Index