Playboy Profile by Harry Jaffe

Spence has displayed his healthy ego most of his life. When he moved from Wyoming to Mill Valley in a vain attempt to salvage his marriage, he tried to place an ad in the "American Bar Association Journal." "Best trial lawyer in America needs work," it read. The journal returned it with his check.

Gerry Spence revels in his ego. "It is I, always not the client, on trial," he wrote in his first book. "The jury accepts or rejects me, not my case. I make the case. I am the director, the producer, its principal actor. It is my courtroom, my judge, my jury." And if the jurors say no, "they are saying no to all of me."

Illustration By David Levine

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Reprinted from Playboy, April 1996 Copyright © 1996 Playboy Enterprises, Inc. No part of this article may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means--electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise--without the written permission of the copyright owner.

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