Opening Argument; A Young Lawyer's First Case: United States v. Oliver North
New York: Viking, 1991. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. viii, [2], 374 pages. Index. Slight wear to DJ edges. Some minor page and edge soiling noted. Signed by the author on half-title page. The author was the youngest lawyer on Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh's team to investigate and try the leading figure in the Iran-Contra affair--Oliver North. Jeffrey Ross Toobin (born May 21, 1960) is an American lawyer, author, blogger, and legal analyst for CNN. During the Iran–Contra affair, he served as an associate counsel in the Department of Justice. He moved from government into writing during the 1990s, and wrote for The New Yorker from 1993 to 2020. Toobin has written several books, including an account of the O. J. Simpson murder case. That book was adapted as a TV series, The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story, which aired in 2016 as the first season of FX's American Crime Story. Toobin graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in American history and literature from Harvard, and was awarded a Harry S. Truman Scholarship. He then attended Harvard Law School, where he was classmates with Elena Kagan and graduated magna cum laude with a J.D. in 1986. While there, he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Toobin wrote a book, Opening Arguments: A Young Lawyer's First Case: United States v. Oliver North,about his work in the Office of Independent Counsel, to which Walsh objected. Toobin went to court to affirm his right to publish. Judge Keenan of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York wrote an opinion that Toobin and his publisher had the right to release this book. n January of 1987 Jeffrey Toobin is fresh out of Harvard Law School, and appointed the youngest lawyer on Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh’s team to investigate and try the leading figure in the Iran-Contra affair–Oliver North. For twenty-eight thrilling months, Toobin served on Walsh’s staff and came of age into his profession. Toobin’s first book and immersive account of that period is the story of a young man’s awakening to the realities of law and a political, legal and moral drama on a grand stage. Through this defining case of the 1980s–which featured obstruction of justice, diversion of funds, and personal corruption–Opening Arguments shows the judicial process at work. The Congressional Iran-Contra committees granted the key figures of the trial immunity, so Toobin and his colleagues had to work in the dark, without access to newspapers or television for weeks at a time. The Reagan Justice Department provided difficulties too. On page after page, Toobin illuminates these battles against long odds, portraying the climactic North trial itself with the eye of a novelist. Like a morality tale with few losers and no real winners, Bill Moyers calls Opening Arguments ”a valuable account of how politics and law entwined in the Iran-Contra trials… Reading it can be a citizen’s education, too.”. Condition: Good / Very good.
Keywords: Lawyers, Special Prosecutors, Lawrence Walsh, Iran-Contra Affair, Oliver North, Trials
ISBN: 0670831581
[Book #83186]
Price: $55.00