The following is a cached version of the Best of the Texas
Century - Lawyer of the Century article
Cover Photograph by
Michael O'Brien
Produced by Suzi Bittles
BUSINESS
Lawyer of the Century
by John Spong
When Joe Jamail
won an $11.2 billion jury verdict against Texaco for his client,
Pennzoil, in 1985, the plaintiffs lawyer from Houston officially
became larger than life. But he won that case and so many others
by humanizing concepts as nominally intimidating as "tortious
interference with contractual relations" and reminding
businessfolks that a handshake really does mean something. And
he is decidedly human himself: Despite securing more than two
hundred verdicts and settlements in the neighborhood of $13
billion, he counts among his proudest achievements a summary
judgment over McCarthyite attack dog Roy Cohn ("I sent his ass
back to New York in tatters") and the fact that a group portrait
hanging outside the Joseph D. Jamail Center for Legal Research
at the University of Texas shows him holding a highball.
Runner-up: Leon Jaworski, who prosecuted Nazi war criminals, a
segregationist Southern governor, and a lying U.S. president.
