{"product_id":"v-goliath-isbn-9780375726552","title":"v. Goliath","description":"David Boies, the star trial lawyer in a country obsessed with legal drama, proves endlessly fascinating in this compulsively readable account of his extraordinary career.A man of almost superhuman accomplishment, Boies argued a string of headline-making cases before being catapulted to international prominence when he represented Al Gore before the Supreme Court in \u003ci\u003eBush \u003c\/i\u003ev.\u003ci\u003e Gore.\u003c\/i\u003e Brash, reckless, and prideful, he is also charming, charismatic, unerringly articulate in the courtroom, and supremely comfortable in the public eye. Legal journalist Karen Donovan, herself a lawyer, had unprecedented access to Boies for nearly two years. In \u003ci\u003ev. Goliath \u003c\/i\u003eshe gives us a scintillating chronicle of the legal dramas in which Boies has played a crucial role and a riveting, up-close portrait of a singularly gifted lawyer.“A complex portrait. . . . Donovan was given extraordinary access to Mr. Boies, and it paid off.” —\u003ci\u003eThe New York Sun\u003c\/i\u003e“Incisive. . . . [An] invaluable depiction of a man as complicated and contradictory as he is gifted.” —\u003ci\u003eNew York Law Journal\u003c\/i\u003e“Insightful. . . . A sure, skeptical account of Boies’s rise to the top of the legal realm.” —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e“Here a colorful life takes on some color [with Donovan’s] significant access to Boies and his inner circle.” —\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003eBenjamin Lebert was born in Freiburg, Germany, in 1982. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eCrazy\u003c\/i\u003e, a best seller in Germany, which was published when he was sixteen years old.ONE\u003cbr\u003e“Once it’s over, it’s over.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e10:25 a.m., December 10, 2000, Westchester County Airport\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Well, I have twenty-four hours,” David Boies said, finally settling  into his seat in the Learjet that was idling on the tarmac.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe statement begged for a question, and I obliged. “To do what?” I  asked from the seat across from him. “To learn the constitutional law,”  Boies replied matter-of-factly, his steely blue eyes staring ahead.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn this morning, Day 33 of the postelection fight between Vice  President Al Gore and George W. Bush, we were headed toward Washington,  D.C., for the final court appointment that would decide who won the  presidency in 2000. Each of the previous thirty-two days had presented  a roller-coaster ride, swinging wildly often by the hour, for the  opponents, and for the nation, which woke up the morning of November 7  to discover that the presidential race was too close to call. The state  of Florida hung in the balance, with Gore pressing for recounts of the  ballots and Bush opposing him at every turn.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs Boies boarded the plane, I mentioned that I had caught part of his  ABC appearance on This Week with Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts before  leaving my Brooklyn apartment. He told me that was one of four Sunday  shows he had taped, beginning at six-thirty that morning.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoies pulled out the draft of a legal brief that was due at four  o’clock that afternoon at the U.S. Supreme Court; the case was  scheduled for argument at eleven a.m. the next day. In all likelihood,  the argument would be Gore’s last chance to gain the White House.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy ten-thirty, we were airborne. As Boies began to mark up the faxed  pages in his hand, I noted the time that the draft brief had arrived at  his home in Armonk—9:59 a.m. He must have grabbed it just before  leaving, along with the box of sourdough pretzels and blue duffel bag  (which contained another box of pretzels in addition to a cheap blue  suit, a blue striped shirt, and a blue knit tie).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn this ride, I wouldn’t have the opportunity to ask many questions.  But I didn’t need much explanation. It was clear that Boies would be  arguing for Gore the next morning instead of Laurence Tribe, the  Harvard Law School professor considered one of the country’s most  renowned constitutional scholars. Over the course of the Bush\/Gore  fight, Tribe had argued twice against the Republican claim that the  Florida recounts violated the Constitution, on one of those occasions  at the U.S. Supreme Court. Nominally, Boies was the Gore team’s man in  the Florida courts. But of course he was much more than that—he was  their hero.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo it seemed clear to me that Boies would take center stage for the  final act, even though he had told reporters gathered for a hastily  convened\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSaturday-afternoon press conference in Tallahassee the day before that  he was “going home” to Armonk. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a bitter 5–4  split between the justices, had just voted to halt manual recounts  across Florida and to hear Bush’s case on Monday. Boies’s work in the  case was ostensibly finished.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the plane ride home to Armonk that Saturday, I had asked Boies  whether he wanted to argue the case. “You always want to do an  interesting case like that,” he said, but added: “I would frankly  rather not do it, given Larry’s prior involvement. Larry will do a fine  job.” If asked, he said, he would advise the Gore team to stick with  Tribe. “There’s no reason to replace him, and if they were to ask me to  do it, that’s what I’d tell them.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStill, as we parted company at the Westchester airport in the chilly  December wind, he told me to call him later that night—and later that  night I got a brief message to meet him the next morning back at the  Westchester private-plane terminal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, as we taxied down the runway, I took a stab at asking why\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe were headed to D.C. after all. Did he suggest that Tribe do the  argument? “Yeah, I did suggest that,” he said. And what did they say in  response? “That they wanted me to do it,” he said. Did they say  anything else? “Nope.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe conversation was not untypical. Boies was loquacious before the TV  cameras, holding forth like Abe Lincoln, point by point, in perfect  paragraphs, on his reasons why it was important to “count every vote.”  But he was often taciturn in private. He would offer me only a word or  two when I became the least bit inquisitive. Boies was concentrating on  the brief, and on the twenty-four hours he had to learn the  constitutional law.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI had been this route before with Boies. In late August 2000, the  federal appeals court in San Francisco set a schedule for oral  arguments that would determine the fate of his client, Napster, the  Internet company under assault by the entire record industry for  allowing users to copy music for free online. The date for the Napster  argument was October 2, 2000. “Oh, I have another argument scheduled  for that day!” Boies enthused to me over his cell phone one day in late  August, as he was headed by car to meet his law school friend Jimmy  Miller for a weekend of gambling in Atlantic City.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoies seemed thrilled by the Houdini-like prospect of flying from one  federal court to another, all in a day. As the date approached, the  Pasadena court alleviated some of the difficulty (and the drama?) by  providing a video hookup at the San Francisco courthouse where the  Napster case would be argued. That allowed Boies to address the judges  in Pasadena, then take the elevator upstairs to appear before more  cameras at the eleven a.m. arguments in the Napster case, an event that  would be broadcast live over the Internet and the cable channels. I  ventured to ask him why he had not tried to reschedule the Pasadena  case. He told me he didn’t like to ask courts to do that sort of thing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe weekend prior to the arguments, Boies prepared for both cases in a  windowless conference room at Fenwick \u0026amp; West, the law firm that Napster  had first hired for its defense and that had played second fiddle since  the company hired Boies. Sometime after seven o’clock that Sunday  night, Laurence Pulgram, one of Fenwick’s lead lawyers on the case,  poked his head in to ask how things were going and say good night.  “What’s your first line?” Pulgram asked, more than a little hesitant.  Boies, who doesn’t rehearse or “moot” his arguments even with his  closest partners, put Pulgram off. “Oh, I don’t know,” he demurred.  “But there’s still time,” he said with a little laugh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoies thrives on tackling insuperable odds, making it look easy,  traveling light. He keeps counsel with no one, as far as I can tell.  Associates and partners working with him pull cases, draft memos, and  answer his questions, but they rarely have a clue about what arguments  he will present to a court until they, with the rest of us, watch him  at the podium for the main event.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You don’t understand,” his assistant Patrick Dennis once told me, when  I was trying to track Boies down as he shuttled from D.C. to New York  and back in a single day. “David Boies is Superman.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, as the taxi made its way from Reagan National Airport to the  Watergate Hotel on December 10, about a day before the presidential  election would be argued, I asked Boies about the logistics of the task  ahead of him in the case of Bush v. Gore.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn every case, it is Boies’s custom to read all the relevant legal  decisions. Every single one. And usually, there is a point in any  argument when he will reference a passage in a case and offer the court  the exact location on the given page where they might find it. How many  cases will you have to read? “Well, I don’t know. I don’t know,” he  said. He was yawning again. He was clearly tired.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoies disappeared into the Watergate, to locate the suite occupied by  the man he had ousted, Laurence Tribe, and begin preparing for the  arguments. Warren Christopher, the former secretary of state tapped by  the Gore campaign for the postelection fight, announced on CNN that  Gore had made the call to replace Tribe with Boies because the issues  before the Supreme Court were so factually entwined with what happened  before the Florida courts. No one—not Christopher, nor the reporters,  who called in for a backgrounder with the Gore team later that  day—paused to question the choice. When the news went out that Boies  would argue Gore’s final Supreme Court appeal, no one stopped to  consider the obvious—Gore’s last-minute choice of Boies over Tribe. It  was a monumentally bad idea. That Boies jumped at the chance to do it  was beyond hubris.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e5:30 p.m., December 13, 2000, Albany International Airport\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe U.S. Supreme Court issued the decision in Bush’s favor at ten p.m.  on December 12. By then, Boies was already back at home in Armonk. The  next morning, after one last conference call with Gore and his legal  team—the call in which they made the final decision to concede the  election to Bush—Boies headed for Albany on the Learjet, back to  business as usual.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt midday, Boies had arrived in Albany in relative anonymity, but by  the dinner hour, when we headed home, camera crews and reporters from  the local network affiliates had the Albany airport staked out, waiting  to get reaction from Boies about the fateful Supreme Court decision.  Boies greeted them, saying that the highest court in the land had  spoken, that we all must accept that, whether we agreed with the  decision or not. How were the vice president’s spirits? Boies didn’t  want to comment on that. The vice president would address the American  people that night, he said. And, yes, Boies believed that the American  people would come together to support President Bush. We had all  learned a great civics lesson, he said; votes are important, every vote  should count. “I think this country is strong enough. People will rise  above this. I believe that people will unite,” he said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWho could argue with any of that? The man had perfect pitch.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was time to go, time to get into the plane. Boies stopped to sign an  autograph on a businessman’s card. The man said his wife was a fan.  “You did a really great job, though, you really did. To go to the U.S.  Supreme Court with no notes. Five justices against you.” Thanking the  man and signing the card, Boies said, “You don’t have time to look at  notes, even if you take them up.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the way back to Westchester, I asked about Boies’s own spirits. “Oh,  my spirits are fine.” He shrugged. “You’d always rather win than lose.  But once it’s over, it’s over.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMidafternoon, Sunday, December 17, 2000, Grand Floridian Resort,  Orlando, Florida\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDisney World was the Learjet’s final destination in the week that began  with the presidency on the line. This trip had been on Boies’s calendar  for some time. Each year, in mid-December, Boies slated a weekend for  the annual retreat of his law firm, Boies, Schiller \u0026amp; Flexner. The  retreat was probably the only tradition in the firm’s short history.  Mainly, it was a chance for the lawyers’ families to mingle, throw a  party, and brag about the firm’s successes in the last year.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Boies opened his law firm in September 1997, along with his first  partner, Jonathan Schiller, there were ten lawyers. By December 2000,  there were one hundred, mostly centered in New York and D.C., but also  scattered in tiny offices elsewhere, like Hanover, New Hampshire, and  Hollywood, Florida. The lawyers barely knew each other.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“David never gives a speech” at the retreats, Patrick Dennis said. This  didn’t surprise me. There was no need. The firm revolved around him.  When Boies opened the floor to questions from associates on Sunday  morning, the retreat’s last day, there were only a few brave souls who  took him up on the offer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThroughout the weekend, tourists in the Grand Floridian’s lobby often  recognized Boies as he passed, and stopped to say what a wonderful job  he had done for Gore. Schiller toasted Boies at the firm’s dinner  dance, saying, “I want to thank David Boies for everything he has done  for this firm and for our country.” But throughout the weekend, Boies  barely spoke of Gore. It was part of his grace.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the pool at the Grand Floridian, Boies lounged on a chaise, weirdly  soaking up the sun in his trademark blue polyester suit, masked behind  his sunglasses. A Learjet was waiting to take Boies and his law  partner, Robert Silver, back to Armonk that night. The plane would fly  through a storm that had canceled or rerouted the commercial flights  for that day. The private flight would allow Boies to make a crucial  appearance the next day before the judge overseeing Boies’s class  action against Sotheby’s and Christie’s auction houses, a case where  Boies stood to make a $26 million fee. Boies had brought to the  swimming pool a transcript of Linda Wachner’s deposition in Calvin  Klein’s case against her. At the pool, Boies held the transcript but  didn’t look at it. Instead, he closed his eyes and lounged on the  chaise, chatting with Silver, who had long been part of Boies’s inner  circle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoies enjoyed sparring with Silver, a genuine child prodigy who had a  master’s degree from Yale by the age of nineteen. Boies used Silver as  a sounding board, quizzing him with Socratic questions before important  legal arguments. By the swimming pool, the two men wondered aloud how  much the firm would grow by the next year. A number came up—140  lawyers—and Boies suggested that he would take “either side” of the  bet. Silver didn’t take a side; he wanted to know whether that was what  Boies wanted. If Boies wanted the firm to grow that much, Silver said  he would do whatever he could to achieve that. But then the subject was  dropped, and Silver lost his chance at the case of wine that was on the  table in the bet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe conversation moved on to the subject of law firm management, a  topic in which Boies seemed decidedly disinterested. The firm of Boies,  Schiller \u0026amp; Flexner seemed to have no management, aside from the three  men who were its name partners. Silver suggested an executive committee  to review the delicate topic of compensation. Boies casually asked  Silver to prove how it would work. Boies had already maddened Silver by  telling him that he wouldn’t sit on such a committee.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46299840184549,"sku":"NP9780375726552","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375726552.jpg?v=1767743349","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/v-goliath-isbn-9780375726552","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}