Editing John Edwards (section)

==Legal career==
{{update|section|date = June 2021}}
[[File:John Edwards 1996.jpg|thumb|right|Edwards in 1996]]
After law school, Edwards [[Law clerk|clerked]] for federal judge [[Franklin Dupree]] in North Carolina, and in 1978 became an associate at the [[Nashville, Tennessee|Nashville]] law firm of Dearborn & Ewing, doing primarily trial work, defending a Nashville bank and other corporate clients.<ref name=PewResearch>{{cite web |title=Religion and Politics '08: John Edwards |url=http://www.pewforum.org/2008/11/04/religion-and-politics-08-john-edwards/ |website=Pew Research Center |access-date=11 April 2015 |format=Religion and Public Life |date=4 November 2008}}</ref><ref name="EdwardsTrialWork"/> [[Lamar Alexander]], a Republican and future governor of and U.S. Senator from Tennessee, was among Edwards's co-workers.<ref name="big little guys"/> The Edwards family returned to North Carolina in 1981, settling in the capital of [[Raleigh, North Carolina|Raleigh]], where he joined the firm of Tharrington, Smith & Hargrove.<ref name="EdwardsTrialWork">{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/31/politics/campaign/31EDWA.html |title=In Trial Work, Edwards Left a Trademark |work=The New York Times |author=Adam Liptak and Michael Moss |date=January 31, 2004 |access-date=May 21, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090424115607/http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/31/politics/campaign/31EDWA.html |archive-date=April 24, 2009}}</ref><ref name="big little guys">{{cite web |last=de la Cruz |first=Bonna |title=Edwards has represented big as well as little guys |url=http://www.thetennessean.com/government/archives/04/07/53958158.shtml?Element_ID=53958158 |work=The Tennessean |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040719210753/http://www.thetennessean.com/government/archives/04/07/53958158.shtml?Element_ID=53958158 |archive-date=July 19, 2004 |date=July 8, 2004}}</ref>

In 1984, Edwards was assigned to a [[medical malpractice]] lawsuit that had been perceived to be unwinnable; the firm had accepted it only as a favor to an attorney and state senator who did not want to keep it. Nevertheless, Edwards won a $3.7 million verdict on behalf of his client, who had suffered permanent brain and nerve damage after a doctor prescribed an overdose of the anti-alcoholism drug [[Antabuse]] during alcohol aversion therapy.<ref name="findlaw">{{cite web |url=http://news.findlaw.com/newsmakers/john.edwards.html |title=John Edwards |work=FindLaw |date=n.d. |access-date=March 25, 2007}}</ref> In other cases, Edwards sued the [[American Red Cross]] three times, alleging transmission of AIDS through tainted blood products, resulting in a confidential settlement each time, and defended a North Carolina newspaper against a libel charge.<ref name="EdwardsTrialWork"/>

In 1985, Edwards represented a five-year-old child born with cerebral palsy – a child whose mother's doctor did not choose to perform an immediate [[Caesarean section|Caesarean delivery]] when a fetal monitor showed she was in distress. Edwards won a $6.5 million verdict for his client, but five weeks later, the presiding judge sustained the verdict on liability but overturned the damage award on grounds that it was "excessive" and that it appeared "to have been given under the influence of passion and prejudice", adding that in his opinion "the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict."<ref name="EdwardsTrialWork"/> He offered the plaintiffs $3.25 million, half of the jury's award, but the child's family appealed the case and received $4.25 million in a settlement.<ref name="EdwardsTrialWork"/> Winning this case established the North Carolina precedent of physician and hospital liability for failing to determine whether the patient understood the risks of a particular procedure.<ref name="findlaw"/>

After this trial, Edwards gained national attention as a plaintiff's lawyer. He filed at least twenty similar lawsuits in the years following, and achieved verdicts and settlements of more than $60 million for his clients. Similar lawsuits followed across the country. When asked about an increase in Caesarean deliveries nationwide, perhaps to avoid similar medical malpractice lawsuits, Edwards said, "The question is, would you rather have cases where that happens instead of having cases where you don't intervene and a child either becomes disabled for life or dies in utero?"<ref name="EdwardsTrialWork"/>

In 1993, Edwards began his own firm in Raleigh (now named Kirby & Holt) with a friend, David Kirby. He became known as the top plaintiffs' attorney in North Carolina.<ref name="EdwardsTrialWork" /> The biggest case of his legal career was a 1996 product liability lawsuit against Sta-Rite, the manufacturer of a defective pool drain cover. The case involved Valerie Lakey, a girl who at five years old<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://abc11.com/archive/7465665/ |title=Pools scramble to meet new regulation &#124; ABC11 Raleigh-Durham &#124; abc11.com - ABC11 Raleigh-Durham |date=May 13, 2021 |website= |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210513091631/https://abc11.com/archive/7465665/ |archive-date=13 May 2021 |url-status=dead}}</ref> sustained [[pool suction-drain injury]].<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/160341/ |title=Defense Rests in Pool Drain Lawsuit |publisher=WRAL |date=December 17, 1996 |access-date=July 19, 2008}}</ref> She was disemboweled by the suction power of the pool drain pump when she sat on an open pool drain whose protective cover had been removed by other children at the pool, after the swim club had failed to install the cover properly. Despite 12 prior suits with similar claims, Sta-Rite continued to make and sell drain covers lacking warnings. Sta-Rite protested that an additional warning would have made no difference because the pool owners already knew the importance of keeping the cover secured.

In his closing arguments, Edwards spoke to the jury for an hour and a half and made reference to his son, Wade, who had been killed shortly before testimony began.{{clarify|date=February 2016}} Mark Dayton, editor of ''North Carolina Lawyers Weekly'', would later call it "the most impressive legal performance I have ever seen."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0110.green.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20011007071335/http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0110.green.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 7, 2001 |title=John Edwards, Esq. |publisher=Washington Monthly |author=Joshua Green |date=January 10, 2001 |access-date=March 25, 2007 }}</ref> The jury awarded the family $25 million, the largest personal injury award in North Carolina history. The company settled for the $25 million while the jury was deliberating additional [[punitive damages]], rather than risk a further award. For their part in this case, Edwards and law partner David Kirby earned the [[Association of Trial Lawyers of America]]'s national award for public service.<ref name="findlaw" /> The family said that they hired Edwards over other attorneys because he alone had offered to accept a smaller percentage as his fee unless the award was unexpectedly high, while all of the other lawyers they spoke with said they required the full one-third fee. The size of the jury award was unprecedented, and Edwards did receive the standard one-third-plus-expenses fee typical of contingency cases. The family was so impressed with his intelligence and commitment<ref name="EdwardsTrialWork"/> that they volunteered for his Senate campaign the next year.

After Edwards won a large verdict against a trucking company whose worker had been involved in a fatal accident, the North Carolina legislature passed a law prohibiting such awards unless the company had specifically sanctioned the employee's actions.<ref name="EdwardsTrialWork"/>

In December 2003, during his first presidential campaign, Edwards (with [[John Auchard]]) published ''[[Four Trials]]'', an autobiographical book focusing on cases from his legal career. According to this book, the success of the Sta-Rite case and his son's death (Edwards had hoped his son would eventually join him in private law practice) prompted Edwards to leave the legal profession and seek public office.

Edwards, his daughter Cate, and David Kirby started a new law firm in 2013, named Edwards Kirby, with offices in Raleigh and in Washington, D.C.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.wral.com/edwards-to-rejoin-former-law-partner/13117129/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303233217/http://www.wral.com/edwards-to-rejoin-former-law-partner/13117129/ |url-status=dead |title=Edwards teaming up again with former law partner|date=November 18, 2013|archive-date=March 3, 2016|website=WRAL.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.edwardskirby.com/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161004222154/http://edwardskirby.com/ |url-status=dead |title=Personal Injury Attorneys in Raleigh, NC|archive-date=October 4, 2016|website=Edwards Kirby, LLP}}</ref>