Customer Reviews

The Trial Lawyers: The Nation's Top Litigators Tell How They Win

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2 star:		(1)
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I think I gave up on this book when it spent a page detailing how one attorney had a younger, blond wife who came from a rich family and worked out with him. THen it went on to say how they had a personal trainer and worked out at an exclusive club.


WTF does that have to do with anything?

Please note that the book was written in the 80's so all of the legal insight is horribly outdated.

I wouldn't give 50 cents for this book.

This book features "the story of ten famous trials, and how ten well-known lawyers won them." For trial lawyers looking more for "war stories" than a Trial Advocacy textbook, this is a good buy. Couric includes criminal and civil lawyers in her study, such as Racehorse Haynes, the Nashville lawyer for Elvis Presley's doctor, and Fred Bartlitt long before he was Chief Counsel to BP Deepwater Horizon Commission. True, the science may seem outdated, and the trial of John DeLoreon may make you think of Michael J. Fox as much as your current cases. Still, human nature changes slowly, if ever, and each one of these trial lawyers offers insight into human nature. In one memorable summation, Racehorse Haynes tells us, "The eyes are the windows to the soul."

This book is profoundly outdated. The practice of law involves nowadays a lot more of technology, a lot more of sophisticating approach of the cases and a lot more of sharks in the sea to fight with.
A good (but not great) read, a pretty good insight at how lawyers used to think.
I would say it' s ok for a non-lawyer to buy and read this book, but I - as a lawyer -would go for a more modern read.
Also note that this book talks about trial lawyers exclusively, so this is about a percentage of all lawyers, and i would say its for those who (used to) handle pretty big cases, so this has very little to day with the everyday practice of law.
Also: the nations top litigators don' t really tell you how they win, they much more tell you how they "won".

Attention aspiring litigators (and experienced attorneys) - this book is a great read. The stories are real and riveting. My only concern is that the stories are becoming dated. Despite the effects of the unavoidable passage of time, these ten stories continue to impress.

As a law student, I found this book extremely helpful. It has briefs about the work of America's finest lawyers in civil, criminal, and tort law. It is truly amazing. "The Nation's Top Litigators Tell How They Win" and surely they do. Legal textbooks are stuffy, inhuman, and relate little to practicing real law. Books like these are what prepare you for practicing law in the real world.

After reading Emily Couric's hugely interesting book I now realise that a good lawyer is worth his or her weight in gold. The secrets of the top legal eagles are laid bare; an LA attorney candidly admits that "flirting ouragously with the judge by batting eyelashes and wearing short skirts" has served him well in the California courts, while a New York litigator fascinatingly reveals his strategy when he represented the man fired for masturbating in his office and won him $2.1M after a jury found his employers liable for failing to protect him from sexually harrassing himself.