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That, said his former partner Wade M. Smith, is a lethal combination in a trial lawyer. "People don't see him coming until it's too late," Mr. Smith said. "It's true in politics and it was true in the law."
Even Mr. Edwards's former adversaries give him grudging praise. "He has an ingratiating way," said Dewey W. Wells, a former state court judge in North Carolina who litigated against Mr. Edwards as a defense lawyer, "particularly with jurors and particularly with women on juries."
Mr. Edwards tried his first big personal injury case in 1984, seven years after graduating from the University of North Carolina law school. He had clerked for a federal judge, worked briefly for a firm in Nashville and then joined Tharrington, Smith & Hargrove, a small firm in Raleigh, N.C., with only a limited litigation practice.
The firm took the case that resulted in Mr. Edwards's first big jury verdict as a favor to a state senator and lawyer who had let it languish. Mr. Edwards, then a young associate, got the assignment because it was considered a loser.
"I said, `Let's dump the file on John's desk,' " said Wade H. Hargrove, a former partner at the firm.
The plaintiff in the case, Howard E. G. Sawyer, was disabled as a result of what Mr. Edwards said was an overdose of a drug used in alcohol aversion therapy. O. E. Starnes, who represented the hospital, had never heard of Mr. Edwards.
"He came over here and ate our lunch," Mr. Starnes said.
The jury awarded Mr. Sawyer $3.7 million.
"That created a buzz," Mr. Hargrove said. "The revenue that he was producing was an out-of-body experience. John would pick up an $800,000 fee for making a few phone calls."
In the years that followed, Mr. Edwards handled all sorts of cases. He litigated contract and insurance disputes. He sued the American National Red Cross three times, claiming that the AIDS virus was transmitted through tainted blood products, and obtained a confidential settlement in each case. He defended a Wilmington, N.C., newspaper owned by The New York Times Company in a libel suit.
In 1993 Mr. Edwards founded his own firm with an old friend, David F. Kirby. Now known as Kirby & Holt, the firm boasts on its Web site that it still holds the record for the largest birth-injury settlement in North Carolina.
Michael J. Dayton, editor of The North Carolina Lawyers Weekly, which frequently published summaries of Mr. Edwards's trial victories and settlements, based on information his firms provided, said his stature was uncontested.
"On the plaintiffs' side, he was absolutely the top one," Mr. Dayton said.
Parents Felt He Cared
Something more than Mr. Edwards's reputation attracted David and Sandy Lakey of Raleigh, N.C., the parents of a young girl injured in a swimming pool. The Lakeys say all the lawyers they interviewed except Mr. Edwards wanted one-third of any award, which one of them predicted would not exceed $1.5 million. Mr. Edwards offered to take a smaller percentage, unless the award reached unexpected heights.
In 1997, it did. A jury awarded the Lakeys $25 million, of which Mr. Edwards got one-third plus expenses.
He so impressed the Lakeys that they worked as volunteers in his Senate campaign the next year.
"I know how intelligent he is, how capable and how deeply he cares," Ms. Lakey said.
In some ways, he might even have been too successful. In response to a large punitive award against a trucking company whose driver was involved in a fatal accident, the North Carolina Legislature passed a law that barred such awards unless the employee's actions had been specifically approved by company officials.
Over time, Mr. Edwards became quite selective about cases. Liability had to be clear, his competitors and opponents say, and the potential award had to be large.
"He took only those cases that were catastrophic, that would really capture a jury's imagination," Mr. Wells, a defense lawyer, said. "He paints himself as a person who was serving the interests of the downtrodden, the widows and the little children. Actually, he was after the cases with the highest verdict potential. John would probably admit that on cross-examination."
