Former vice presidential candidate John Edwards, who left politics in disgrace amid a sex and campaign-corruption scandal, is reuniting with his former law partner David Kirby to open a law practice in Raleigh, N.C.
According to the
Charlotte Observer, the firm of Edwards Kirby also will have offices in Washington, D.C., run by Edwards' eldest daughter Cate.
"I loved it for the decades I did it, and I think it’s what I was born to do,” the 60-year-old Edwards told the Observer.
A former U.S. senator who was the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee, Edwards insisted in the interview that he doesn't believe his affair with his campaign videographer Rielle Hunter while his late wife Elizabeth Edwards was fighting breast cancer will hurt him with juries. Edwards had a child with Hunter.
While refusing to answer questions about reports he's now dating a 35-year-old single mother, Edwards says that in his experience, juries decide verdicts based on the evidence and the law as well as how well the cases are presented.
"Courtrooms are not a place where, in my experience, showmanship and flamboyance wins out. Hard work and having a case that is true and meritorious wins out.”
Edwards was elected to the Senate from North Carolina in 1998 and served one term. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, when he eventually became John Kerry's running mate, and later he failed in his bid to become the presidential nominee in 2008.
His personal and political life collapsed when he admitted in 2010 that he had fathered a child with Hunter.
His affair with Hunter resulted in his being charged with six counts of campaign-finance corruption alleging that he used nearly $1 million in contributions to hide his pregnant mistress during his 2008 presidential bid. He was cleared of one charge by a federal jury in May; a mistrial was declared on the other counts.
Elizabeth Edwards died on Dec. 7, 2010.
Edwards and Kirby worked on a number of high-profile cases together, and Edwards says his friend is "the best lawyer I know." Their new firm will have six attorneys. They plan to take on consumer-rights, personal-injury, and civil-rights cases.
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