|
Nobody had to tell Edward Bennett Williams to go for the gusto. Whether Williams was representing Jimmy Hoffa or running the Redskins, he approached it at full throttle. Williams described his own style as "contest living" - every day, every activity went either into the "win" or the "loss" column. There was no credit for doing his best in his personal record book.
When he died of cancer in 1988, there was no question that Edward Bennett Williams was a winner in everyone's book.
Williams grew up in modest circumstances, the only child of a department store buyer and floor walker. After graduating first in his class from Holy Cross College in 1941, Williams entered law school at Georgetown University but he soon left to join the Army air force. When a back injury ended his military career, he returned to Georgetown and graduated in 1944.
Williams joined Hogan & Hatson and practiced there for the next five years - until he married the boss's granddaughter and left the firm. But the Williams litigating style was evident from the first case he tried on his own. Williams represented a bicycle rider who had knocked over a pedestrian. Williams countersued the pedestrian for failing to get out of the cyclist's way and won $500 for his client.
In fact, Williams' diversity of both famous and infamous clients was matched by his legal ingenuity. By his early thirties, Edward Bennett Williams had become so well known as a defense attorney that a New York Daily News profile trumpeted, "Anyone who claims to be victimized by courts or Congressional committees now automatically cries 'get Ed Williams!'"
In 1968, he hooked up with one of his former students at Georgetown Law School, Paul Connolly. That partnership created a major legal powerhouse that today numbers 130 attorneys.
Williams made his mark outside the courtroom, too, as owner of the Jefferson Hotel, owner of the Washington Redskins, owner of the Baltimore Orioles, and advisor to political leaders of both parties.
|
