Former Presidential Candidate John Edwards to Return to Personal Injury Law
Former Democratic North Carolina Senator and presidential candidate John Edwards confirmed last week that he is returning to personal injury law and will establish a brand new law firm with his eldest daughter, Cate. After exiting politics, Edwards has since worked on Wall Street and established a Louisiana Home Rescue Fund.
His practice will be located in his home state of North Carolina in Raleigh and in Washington, D.C. The law firm will be launched with his first law partner, David Kirby, who he had worked with in 1993. The practice will be named Edwards Kirby.
Six attorneys will be associated with the law firm and will focus on several key areas, including public safety, product safety, consumer protection, healthcare and medical liability cases, discrimination and civil rights.
“It is a privilege to practice again, and we want to take on cases that, through litigation, change social inequalities in favor of the greater good,” Edwards said in a statement. “In building Edwards Kirby, we sought a team that has championed the causes of economic and social equality in court and in hundreds of communities across the country.”
Edwards’s daughter, meanwhile, said that her father’s mission in life has been to assist those who are disenfranchised and impoverished. She told WRAL (via United Press International) in an interview that the primary reason Edwards Kirby was founded is “to give people a voice, to give the disenfranchised a voice.”
Included on the law firm’s payroll will be his daughter’s partner, Sharon Eubanks.
Edwards told the New York Times that he worked with a public relations agency to announce the launch of the law firm. When asked why he used a PR firm, he responded that he wanted the public to know about it. He then iterated a message to the news outlet: “If you’ve been treated unfairly and you believe you have a legal case, all of us at Edwards Kirby are available to help you.”
This is Edwards’s first entry into public eye since Injury law Elizabeth NJ he was acquitted on charges of accepting illegal political contributions and five other campaign finance charges. The result of the trial allowed Edwards to retain his law license.
The trial, which had touched upon numerous personal troubles, had damaged his public image and possibly ruined any chances of running for public office again. He has openly admitted that he had an affair with a former campaign worker.
Elizabeth Edwards, his wife, had been diagnosed with cancer twice and passed away in 2010 from metastatic breast cancer.
The former one-term senator ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008 and was the 2004 vice-presidential candidate with Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. The Kerry-Edwards ticket lost to President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney in a contentious electoral battle.
