"Four Trials," Four Stars? Four Trials Four Stars
John Edwards's "Four Trials" (2003) John Edwards John Edwards John Edwards
By FITZ E. BARRINGER
April 2007
An old adage among readers cautions against judging a book by its cover. But if you were to evaluate John Edwards's Four Trials with such a cursory glance, you might come away with the impression that its author is a sensible, hardworking, and devoted individual – comfortable in the trappings of a business suit, but not afraid to roll up his sleeves and work for a cause. On the cover of Four Trials, after all, Edwards sits on the floor of a courtroom, his perfectly knotted tie loosed just slightly, his collar casually opened to frame the full length of his neck, and his wrinkled shirtsleeves rolled up just enough to reveal an inexpensive wristwatch – the kind of wristwatch that keeps time, not for the fabulously wealthy, but for America's working man.
And if this is your impression of Edwards after scanning the front cover – that Edwards is a man of the people, a man of conviction, a man of justice, a man of work – then the photograph has done the job of 68,120 words. For from beginning to end, from the front cover to the back, Four Trials is a book carefully crafted to paint John Edwards as a man of the people, for the people – a man ready to fight for you.
While Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Rudy Giuliani, and many of the other 2008 presidential contenders have written books that describe their upbringings and the merits of their political ideals, Four Trials, penned during Edwards's only term as Senator, attempts to capture its author's philosophy of life. Leaving politics and promises aside, Edwards lets his record as an advocate in medical malpractice and corporate negligence lawsuits speak to his character. More important, Edwards attempts to convey to readers his own sense of decency and justice – ideals certain to resonate with readers long after they have finished the book.
Four Trials focuses on Edwards's experiences defending four grievously injured clients – each courageous, engaging, and lovable in his or her own way. This focus on people reduces the complex, fact-driven cases to their human elements. And in so doing, Edwards skillfully pulls on his readers' emotions to create a powerful story of bravery and triumph against the odds. Whether it is a young boy collecting payment for the wrongful death of his parents or the plight of a young girl born with numerous mental and physical handicaps due to a doctor's mistakes, Edwards describes how his clients won the tort system's version of justice in an otherwise cruel world.
This focus on clients and trials means that Edwards must take a supporting role in much of the book. Certainly anecdotes from his childhood and family are sprinkled throughout – and such personal stories become increasingly important at later stages – but for the most part Four Trials concentrates on Edwards's attempts to help his clients. Indeed, even during moments when his personal experiences take on a more central role, Edwards goes out of his way to tie such matter to his clients' cases, almost as if he exists – or at least wants the reader to believe that he exists – for the sole purpose of serving those in need. If this singular focus and commitment is interpreted as a sign of the author's selflessness and sincerity, so much the better, but in Four Trials Edwards is determined to not commit the sin of pride.
Of course part of the reason for Edwards's modesty is that each page of his book is a testimony to his brilliance as an attorney. With the confidence of a lawyer at the top of his game, Edwards recognizes that his work needs little embellishment. When he describes his philosophy for selecting juries, for instance, it is clear that he holds an understanding for the intricacies of human interaction that few can hope to match. While most lawyers try to determine if potential jurors will lean one way or the other, Edwards claims that he focused on how the jurors interacted with one another. Would one juror be too powerful and monopolize the deliberation process? Would another juror be too stubborn to cooperate with his peers? By seeking to understand people's interactions, Edwards says that he was able to identify not just individual jurors, but an entire jury that promised to be open minded to his case.
Many of Four Trials's courtroom scenes, in fact, illustrate how Edwards's ability to understand individuals translated in legal victories for his clients. Edwards often seems the master of knowing exactly what jurors needed to hear in order to return a certain outcome. Outside the courtroom, some of Edwards's closing arguments can seem corny or even overly dramatic, but that his methods proved effective is beyond question. During the trial against a negligent doctor, for example, Edwards describes how he actually channeled the voice of his young client to speak directly to the jury. “She speaks to you through me,” Edwards said to the jury during his closing argument. “Right now I feel her, I feel her presence; she's inside me, and she's talking to you....She asks you to take this burden that she's carried for six years off of Peggy and Jeff Campbell...and to put it where it belongs.”
While the channeling of human voices is more appropriate for a Hollywood film than an oak-paneled courtroom, in Four Trials it is an example of Edwards using his understanding of people to get the job done. After all, not only did the jury respond to Edwards's words emotionally, but it responded monetarily as well. In what was one of the largest medical malpractice awards in North Carolina at the time, the jury awarded Edwards's client $6.5 million – a figure so large that the presiding judge feared that the jury's partiality had been compromised.
If Edwards is mostly content to take a subservient role to his clients, however, Four Trials occasionally provides a flash of its author's personal confidence. Nowhere is this more clear than in the book's opening case. When representing a quadriplegic man's claims against an Asheville hospital, Edwards notes that he talked his client into rejecting a $750,000 settlement agreement in the expectation that the jury would award an even larger sum. Exhibited in another person, such behavior might signal recklessness or bravado, but Edwards's refusal to settle speaks to something larger than greed, some greater personal understanding of trials, juries, and people. Edwards knew that the jury was sympathetic to his client's case, and he knew his understanding of the jury's emotions was not misplaced. And after reading Edwards's analysis of the case, his observations on the opposing parties mistakes, and the rationale for his arguments, it comes as little surprise when the jury awards $3.7 million, nearly five times the figure that Edwards initially rejected.
In the opening pages of Four Trials, Edwards also expresses his confidence in the American people. By telling the stories of four clients, Edwards writes, he hopes to relate “the larger story of stubborn potential for the best kinds of change, and for more sure justice, in our quite remarkable American society.” Four Trials is not a political book, but the introduction reminds readers that it has been Edwards's “great privilege” to serve the people of the United States, both as a Senator and as an advocate for individuals in need. Edwards points to the past – his own story as a lawyer and the great tradition of strong American people – as the basis for dreaming for a better future. Yet it is here in this reminder that a larger world exists outside the pages of Four Trials where the book disappoints.
Even putting the author's liberal tendencies aside, it is apparent that the Edwards of real life does not always fulfill the promise of Edwards the character. In Four Trials readers meet a man who dreams of working for average Americans to build a better nation. In reality, the people of North Carolina elected a Senator who neglected his duties by compiling one of the worst voting records in the Senate during his last years in Washington. Not only was Edwards absent from the nation's capital near the end of his term, but in 2004 he managed to cast a decision in just 42 percent of the Senate's votes. No doubt Edwards was under the intense pressure of running a national campaign for president (and then vice-president), but such a record raises questions about his true level of commitment to the average people of North Carolina whom he promised to serve.
Moreover, in Four Trials readers meet a man who is fast-thinking, gifted, and filled with conviction. Yet the University of North Carolina's School of Law employed Edwards as the director at the Center for Poverty, Work, and Opportunity, where, for nearly two years, he did little but campaign. During one of his few poverty meetings on campus, in fact, Edwards was unable to opine about poverty in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, telling his audience that he would need to research the matter further. No one likes being put on the spot, but one of Edwards's juries would have been rightfully stunned had the star lawyer been similarly stumped during a trial.
Edwards's track record since the release of Four Trials, therefore, casts doubt on the man of sincerity and confidence that readers encounter within the pages of the book. The romanticized portrait of Edwards is not without basis in reality, but neither is the idealized figure of Four Trials the no-show of the Senate, the absentee director of the Poverty Center, or the slick politician of the campaign trail.
In the end, perhaps Four Trials teaches a variation of the lesson we have known all along. As a book should not be judged by its cover, so, too, a man should not be judged by his book. Like a flashy cover that entices would-be readers, Four Trials promises a rare bread of politician, a man whose record indicates a genuine desire to serve and whose past heralds hope for the future. Like the glittering cover that cannot overcome the burden of an uninspired author, however, the promise of Four Trials ultimately falls flat.
John Edwards, in short, does not live up to his book.