Melvin Mouron Belli ( July 29, 1907 - 9 July, 1996) was a prominent American lawyer known as "The King of Torts" and by detractors as 'Melvin Bellicose'. He had many celebrity clients, including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Errol Flynn, Chuck Berry, Muhammad Ali, Sirhan Sirhan, Jim Bakker, the Rolling Stones, and Tammy Faye Bakker, Martha Mitchell, Lana Turner, Tony Curtis, and Mae West. He won over USD $600,000,000 in judgments during his legal career. Belli was born in the California Gold Rush town of Sonora, California in the Sierra foothills. His father was born in Nevada of Italian Swiss ancestry, and his mother was born in California of French-German Swiss ancestry. By the 1920s, the family had moved to the city of Stockton, California where Belli attended Stockton High School. Belli graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1929 and after traveling around the world for a year, enrolled in and subsequently graduated from Boalt Hall School of Law.

The words "Not Guilty" set one man free, but somehow made all African-Americans, no matter their varied opinions, the enemy. "... the defendant, Orenthal James Simpson, not guilty of the crime of murder..." The Trial of the Century had come to an end. The verdict hit the airwaves and the eyes of the nation descended on the city that made superstars out of attorneys. As an African-American recent college graduate living and working in the city, that verdict had a profound effect on me and the life I made for myself. The trial and the shocking verdict served as the impetus for what would be months of turmoil and unrest. Protests, debates, and incessant banter from both sides of the aisle permeated in our membranes. Lives were changed. Alliances were formed. Mistrust became the rule, not the exception. The words "Not Guilty" set one man free, but somehow made all African-Americans, no matter their varied opinions, the enemy. No one cared to seek our perspective. No one bothered to ask the right questions. We were clumped together as if our stories were one and the same. From the horrific Rodney King assault, to the unsettling residuum following the O.J. Simpson verdict, my life changed in profound ways. SCROLL UP AND BUY NOW. Keywords: O.J. Simpson Trial, Trial of the Century, Nicole Brown Simpson, Ron Goldman, LA Riots, Los Angeles Riots, Rodney King, Johnnie Cochran, F. Lee Bailey, Robert Shapiro, Robert Kardashian, Marcia Clark, Christopher Darden, If It Doesn't Fit, You Must Acquit, Bloody Glove, True Story, Mark Fuhrman, Judge Lance Ito

First published in 1962, this is the biography of American journalist, novelist and screenwriter Adela Rogers St. Johns’ father, Earl Rogers, a renowned Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer in the early 20th century. St. Johns draws on a succession of her father’s well-known court trials, including the trial that centered on perhaps the most famous lawyer-client disagreements recorded in legal history: those that developed between Clarence Darrow, indicted for attempted jury bribery in Los Angeles in 1912, and Earl Rogers himself. St. Johns’ fascinating book was adapted for a TNT television film of the same name in 1991, starring Treat Williams as Earl Rogers and Olivia Burnette as the young Adela Rogers St. Johns.

In Strong Advocate, Thomas Strong, one of the most successful trial lawyers in Missouri’s history, chronicles his adventures as a contemporary personal injury attorney. Though the profession is held in low esteem by the general public, Strong entered the field with the right motives: to help victims who have been injured by defective products or through the negligence of others. As a twelve-year-old in rural southwest Missouri during the Great Depression, Strong bought a cow, then purchased others as he could afford them, and eventually financed his education with the milk he sold. After graduating law school and serving in the Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps, he rejected offers to practice in New York and San Francisco and returned to his hometown of Springfield. Strong exhibited his lifelong passion to represent the underdog early in his practice, the “trial by ambush” days when neither side was required to disclose witnesses or exhibits. He quickly became known for his audacious approach to trying cases. Tactics included asking a friend to ride on top of a moving car and hiring a local character called “Crazy Max” to recreate an automobile accident. One fraud case ended with Strong owning a bank and his opponent going to prison. When he sued a labor union for the wrongful death of his client’s spouse, he found his own life threatened. With changes in the law that allowed discovery of information from an opponent’s files as well as the exhibits and witnesses to be used at trial, Strong and fellow personal injury attorneys forced a wide array of manufacturers to produce safer products. When witnesses of a terrible collision claimed both roadways had green lights simultaneously, Strong purchased the traffic light controller. After three months of continuous testing at a university, the controller failed, showing four green lights, and Strong learned that fail-safe devices were available but had not been implemented. These fail-safe devices are now standard on traffic lights throughout the country. In his last venture, Strong represented the state of Missouri in its case against the tobacco industry, culminating in a settlement totaling billions of dollars. He reflects on the changes—not always for the better—in his oft-maligned profession since he entered the field in the 1950s. Thomas Strong’s story of tenacity, quick wits, and humor demonstrates what made him such a creative and effective attorney. Lawyers and law students can learn much from this giant of the bar, and all readers will be entertained and heartened by his victories for the everyman.

A recent study estimates that thousands of innocent people are wrongfully imprisoned each year in the United States. Some are exonerated through DNA evidence, but many more languish in prison because their convictions were based on faulty eyewitness accounts and no DNA is available. Prominent criminal lawyer and law professor Abbe Smith weaves together real life cases to show what it is like to champion the rights of the accused. Smith describes the moral and ethical dilemmas of representing the guilty and the weighty burden of fighting for the innocent, including the victorious story of how she helped free a woman wrongly imprisoned for nearly three decades. For fans of Law and Order and investigative news programs like 20/20, Case of a Lifetime is a chilling look at what really determines a person's innocence.

This book covers virtually every type of witness and witness situation that a lawyer is likely to encounter.