TOP TEN CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEYS 5-2

  Now we get to the superstars, the best of the best. And other than number one, the rest are really interchangeable based of the charge and the location. For example Lee Bailey would be our pick for a murder defense over every other lawyer except #1, while our own Roy Black would be our #1 choice for a federal drug conspiracy, and you'd be a fool to walk into a court in Texas without Dick DeGuerin if you could get him.  And that brings us to #5 ...

5. Dick DeGuerin

Texas born, steel-eyed. Walked Robert Durst out of a Galveston murder charge on self-defense. Faced down the Waco inferno and the Tom DeLay circus. His genius: an unshakable calm when the whole courtroom was losing its mind, and he is fearless while defending his clients before Texas judges, who let's just say, would prefer that he come in second. You got a case in the lone star state? Dick DeGuerin is your man. 

 4. Roy Black

Miami’s own. The professor of cross-examination. The man who turned “reasonable doubt” into a living, breathing presence in every courtroom he entered. William Kennedy Smith, Rush Limbaugh, Justin Bieber—Roy made the impossible look casual. The GOAT of South Florida trial law. And one thing we learned from Roy was the power of humor. He had a wry sense of humor that he used as a scalpel during cross and closing- and when the jury was laughing, the prosecution was losing. The other thing about Roy was that he was a master of his craft because he mastered his craft- ordering transcripts of famous cases when he was just starting out, so that he could study the masters, and listening to speeches of great orators so he could incorporate their style into his own. His contribution to this blog about his successful defense of Officer Luis Alvarez in the case that made Miami burn can he found here. 

Now we are getting to the very rarified air of true legends. These are the GOATS of our profession. 

3. F. Lee Bailey

The original showman, the bridge between eras. Sam Sheppard’s savior, O.J.’s bulldog. Bailey believed the courtroom was theater and he was Olivier with a bar card. Nobody ever did a cross quite like him—equal parts charm and destruction. His book The Defense Never Rests is one of the reasons we became a criminal defense attorney. He had a brilliant legal mind and no one, and we mean that NO ONE prepared better for a trial than Lee Bailey. 

2. Edward Bennett Williams

If our #1 was cowboy wearing a bolo tie and boots, Williams was cufflinks and a limo. The D.C. legend who represented CIA directors and mob bosses in the same week. His preparation was so obsessive he probably knew what time the jurors brushed their teeth. He made power lawyering look elegant. He cut his teeth in the same type of criminal court in DC that is like the REGJB, and he rose to be the premier criminal defense attorney (along with Lee Bailey) of his generation. If there are two books every criminal defense attorney should read, they are Bailey's The Defense Never Rests, and The Man To See, the phenomenal biography of Williams. His clients included Jimmy Hoffa, Mobster Frank Costello, Senator Joe McCarthy, and Secretary of the Treasury John Connally. The list goes on and on, because for decades, if you had a criminal case, EBW was THE MAN to see. 

Attorney General Bobby Kennedy's Justice Department brought the case against Hoffa. Kennedy, who was a friend of EBW said he would "jump off the capital dome" if he didn't get a conviction of Hoffa. After the acquittal, EBW offered to buy Bobby a parachute, ending their friendship. 

What we love and admire about EBW is that he started small, representing burglars and defending misdemeanor and felony theft cases, and ended up defending some of the highest profile cases in the country. He knew how to defend a case, throw an elbow when required, how to outmaneuver the prosecution, and how to take a witness apart on the stand. He was a brilliant trial lawyer and our #2 greatest of the last generation of criminal defense attorneys. 

Combing tomorrow: The Greatest Trial Lawyer of the 20th Century.