In this book the author describes the battles—both inside and outside the courtroom—that have made him one of the world's most courageous defenders of personal freedoms.
Michael E. Tigar is Emeritus Professor of the Practice of Law at Duke University School of Law, and Professor Emeritus of Law at Washington College of Law, American University, Washington, D.C. He was Acting Professor of Law has at UCLA and Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Law at The University of Texas. He has been a lecturer at dozens of law schools, judicial conferences and bar associations in the United States, Europe, Africa, and Latin America, including service as Professeur Invité at the faculty of law of Université Paul-Cezanne, Aix-en-Provence. He is a 1966 graduate of Boalt Hall, University of California, Berkeley, where he was first in his class, Editor-in-Chief of the law review and Order of the Coif.
He has authored or co-authored thirteen books, three plays, and scores of articles and essays. He has argued seven cases in the United States Supreme Court, about one hundred federal appeals, and has tried cases in all parts of the country in state and federal courts. His latest books are Trial Stories (2008) (edited with Angela Jordan Davis), Thinking About Terrorism:The Threat to Civil Liberties in Times of National Emergency (2007), and Nine Principles of Litigation and Life (2009).
His clients have included Isabel Letelier, the family of Ronni Moffitt, many victims of the Pinochet repression, Angela Davis, H. Rap Brown, John Connally, Kay Bailey Hutchison, the Washington Post, Fantasy Films, Terry Nichols, Allen Ginsberg, Leonard Peltier, the Charleston Five, Fernando Chavez, Karl Dietrich Wolff, and Lynne Stewart. He has been Chair of the 60,000 member Section of Litigation of the American Bar Association, and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Texas Resource Center for Capital Litigation.
In his teaching, he has worked with law students in clinical programs where students are counsel or law clerks in significant human rights litigation. He has made several trips to South Africa, working with organizations of African lawyers engaged in the struggle to end apartheid, and after the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, to lecture on human rights issues and to advise the African National Congress on issues in drafting a new constitution. He has been actively involved in efforts to bring to justice members of the Chilean junta, including former President Pinochet. Of Mr. Tigar's career, Justice William J. Brennan has written that his "tireless striving for justice stretches his arms towards perfection."
Mr. Tigar is listed in Professor John Vile's book, Great American Lawyers: An Encyclopedia (2001), as one of 100 "great" lawyers in United States history. In 1999, the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice held a ballot for "Lawyer of the Century." Mr. Tigar was third in the balloting, behind Clarence Darrow and Thurgood Marshall. In 2003, the Texas Civil Rights Project named its new building in Austin, Texas, (purchased with a gift from attorney Wayne Reaud) the "Michael Tigar Human Rights Center."
He is now at work on a new book about the bribery trial of Clarence Darrow in 1912, based on the trial transcript. This book will focus on the brilliant, though sometimes erratic, performances of the all-star cast of trial lawyers in the case. He is also doing research for a book about iconic trials in France during and after World War I -- including Clemenceau's controversial use of military commissions.
