The Edwards Eloquence Myth comes from his days as a trial lawyer, as evidenced by a Cybercast News Service report on his performance in a 1985 medical malpractice trial. CNS: “Edwards had alleged that a doctor and a hospital had been responsible for the cerebral palsy afflicting then-five-year-old Jennifer Campbell. ‘I have to tell you right now – I didn’t plan to talk about this – right now I feel her (Jennifer), I feel her presence,’ Edwards told the jury according to court records. ‘[Jennifer’s] inside me and she’s talking to you … And this is what she says to you. She says, ‘I don’t ask for your pity. What I ask for is your strength. And I don’t ask for your sympathy, but I do ask for your courage.'”
Apparently Jennifer was also asking for a record jury verdict of $6.5 million against the hospital where she was born along with a $1.5 million settlement Edwards brokered with her obstetrician. Note, by the way, that doctors disagree strongly on the cause of this disease. It’s clear how Edwards accumulated a net worth of between $12.8 and $60 million off the misfortune of others. As the Boston Globe reported last year, Edwards “routinely went beyond a recitation of his case to a heart-wrenching plea to jurors to listen to the unspoken voices of injured children” in his closing statements.