Can John Edwards resist becoming a ‘fool client’?

Following his indictment in June, former U.S. Senator John Edwards stood and listened as the judge explained his rights. But as the judge went on, Edwards interrupted, saying he was an attorney and the explanation wasn’t necessary.

That exchange in the federal courthouse in Winston-Salem, N.C., may have been the first flicker of the legal tension that will run through Edwards’ upcoming trial on charges of violating campaign finance laws. It’s a case in which the defendant is also an attorney, and a very good one. What will be the dynamic between Edwards and his defense team? How much will he steer the case and how much will he defer?

John Edwards had a successful career as a plaintiffs attorney before he started in politics. The question now is whether his knowledge of the law will help or hurt as he plans his defense against charges that he violated campaign finance laws. Bloomberg News file photo

Richard Myers, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at the University of North Carolina School of Law, says Edwards will likely be fighting an instinct to manage his own defense.

“For any competent and successful attorney, it would be incredibly difficult to be a defendant,” Myers says.

Yet for all his success as one of North Carolina’s top plaintiff’s attorneys, Edwards doesn’t want to over-manage his own defense and become the proverbial “fool for a client.”  He has assembled a team of high profile legal advisers to prepare for his trial, tentatively set for October.

The defense team includes Wade Smith, known as the dean of North Carolina defense attorneys and an early mentor to Edwards; James P. Cooney III, a Charlotte attorney who is rated one of the state’s best civil and criminal attorneys; and Gregory Craig, President Obama’s former White House counsel and a personal attorney to former President Bill Clinton.

Smith declined to discuss how the team will be organized by role, but he says Edwards’ legal expertise will be a help, not a hindrance.

“He is one of the easiest people I’ve ever represented because he knows the issues, he knows the law and he understands the case,” Smith says. “Because he’s so aware of all that, it makes your job much easier.”

While Edwards is knowledgeable about the task before his lawyers, he also understands his role as a client, Smith says.

“He’s not more interested than other people would be. All clients are interested,” Smith says, but added, “I’ve found him to be patient.”

Efforts to reach Cooney and Craig were not successful.

Known to push luck

Some wonder why Edwards would put himself and his children through a trial after he was publicly disgraced for having an affair and a baby with his mistress, Rielle Hunter, while his wife was dying of cancer. But taking his chances with a jury wouldn’t be unusual for a man known to push his luck whether the situation is personal, professional or political.

Gary Pearce, a former press secretary to Gov. Jim Hunt and a political advisor to Edwards when he won his U.S. Senate seat in 1998, says Edwards “is a risk taker.”

Pearce notes that Edwards turned down major settlement offers in 1996 when he decided to go to trial for a 5-year-old girl who was disemboweled by a faulty swimming pool drain. He won a $25 million award. In politics, Pearce says, Edwards also gambled in running for the Senate with no experience and then president in 2004 after only one term in the Senate. Edwards secured the 2004 Democratic nomination for vice president and sought the presidency again in 2008.

“You look at his whole career back to the swimming pool case. He was offered an enormous settlement. He turned it down and got more,” Pearce says. “It was a gutsy thing to run for Senate. It was a gutsy thing to run for president.”

And it will be a gutsy thing to decline a plea bargain and go to trial. A trial will bring back all the sordid details of Edwards’ affair. It also will focus on his efforts to cover it up with more than $1 million in gifts from benefactors, gifts the government says he failed to report as campaign contributions. A felony conviction on any of the six felony counts Edwards faces could send him to prison and strip him of his license to practice law. (It’s already been more than a decade since Edwards worked as a lawyer. According to the North Carolina State Bar, his license has been inactive since 2000.)

Shrewd move?

Pearce thinks Edwards made a shrewd move by turning to Smith, a lawyer who likely will concede his client’s flaws, but argue that he did not break the law.

“I don’t think there anybody better than Wade to draw that bright line,” he says.

Even if Edwards the lawyer is willing to stay in the background, Edwards the defendant will still have to make major decisions about the case.

Myers, at the UNC-CH law school, notes that defendants often make the final decision about accepting a plea agreement, whether to testify and even whether to strike prospective jurors.

Those decisions could be complicated by the expertise Edwards brings to them. Myers says, “It creates more chances for disagreement between counsel and the client.”

Myers has been on the other side in cases against Smith and says he’s “a terrific lawyer,” but when the case comes down to key strategic calls, Myers thinks he knows who will make the decision.

He says, “I think it’s probably going to be the client.”