JamesNeal
NASHVILLE -- Outside the courtroom, James F. Neal had an amiable, backslapping way with friends and foes alike. Inside the chamber, the face of one of America's greatest trial lawyers often became fixed in a steely gaze.
The attorney who regularly grabbed national headlines -- whether prosecuting Jimmy Hoffa or key Watergate figures, or defending Elvis Presley's doctor or the Exxon Corp. after the Alaska oil spill -- died Thursday night in Nashville. He was 81.
In the words of Fred Thompson, already a lawyer in real life before he became one on TV, "Jim Neal was the greatest trial lawyer of his time."
For former Vice President Al Gore, Mr. Neal was a "brilliant attorney" and close friend. "As a prosecutor, he served our nation with brilliance and dedication at a time when his skill was greatly needed by the American people," Gore said in a statement.
And prosecute, by all accounts, was something Mr. Neal did well.
The government had tried four times to convict the Teamsters president Hoffa before Mr. Neal got it done in 1964 in a jury-tampering case. As a special prosecutor, Mr. Neal later put Watergate conspirators John Mitchell, Robert Haldeman and John Erlichman behind bars in the twilight of the Richard Nixon presidency.
In private practice, Mr. Neal successfully defended Ford Motor Co. against reckless homicide charges in Indiana after the gas tank of a 1973 Ford Pinto exploded, killing the car's driver.
In 1981, he successfully defended Dr. George Nichopoulos of Memphis against charges that he overprescribed drugs to the late crooner Presley.
Mr. Neal's rise to prominence began in 1964. As a special assistant to then-U.S. Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy, Mr. Neal succeeded in convicting Hoffa, sending him to prison.
In private practice, Mr. Neal developed a reputation for his dogged defense of clients facing a tide of adverse public opinion.
After actor Vic Morrow and two others died in 1982 during filming of the movie "Twilight Zone," Mr. Neal successfully defended director John Landis in 1987 against charges of involuntary manslaughter.
No lawyer wins all his cases, though, and neither did Mr. Neal.
He was hired in 1990 to represent the Exxon Corp., which was charged with polluting the Alaska shoreline with the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill. The company settled for what was then a record $1 billion and pleaded guilty to four misdemeanors.
Mr. Neal, who grew up on a Tennessee farm, was a graduate of the University of Wyoming and Vanderbilt University School of Law in Nashville.
He received his Master of Law degree from Georgetown University in Washington.
He was U.S. attorney for Middle Tennessee from 1964 to 1966. Mr. Neal then entered private practice and in 1973 was called to Washington to become chief trial lawyer for the Watergate special prosecutor's office.
