John Edwards rises from political ashes to rebuild his legal career
John Edwards was a top personal injury lawyer before he turned to politics two decades ago. But after two "wildly unsuccessful" runs at president and an extramarital affair that made tabloid headlines for years, the former U.S. senator has quietly returned to law to resurrect his career.
Edwards has kept a low profile since his was acquitted seven years ago of accepting illegal campaign contributions. Jurors deadlocked on five other federal charges against him, and prosecutors chose not to pursue the case further.
In an exclusive interview with WRAL News, he said Monday that he has relished the chance to return to his roots and practice again with close friend and longtime business partner David Kirby.
"If you're someone who has had something bad happen to you, you can't have a better champion for your rights than John," Kirby said.
"I think what I always wanted to do was big cases in a courtroom. I love being in a courtroom," Edwards said.
He said he also loves working with his daughter, Cate Edwards, in the law firm. She worked in Washington, D.C., and in California before she and her husband, a heart surgeon, moved back to Raleigh with their two children.
"I've been able to watch her up close do extraordinary work," he said. "She’s got some of me in her, she’s got some of her mother in her. She’s strong, independent, [and] she likes to give advice. But I guarantee you, she will speak her mind and take up for what she thinks is the right thing to do."
"It's been a lot of fun and a huge learning experience, definitely," Cate Edwards said.
The Edwards Kirby law firm represents the plaintiffs in several high-profile cases, including the families of Soheil Antonio Mojarrad and Kong Lee. Mojarrad was shot and killed by a Raleigh police officer last month, while Lee was killed in a natural gas explosion in Durham last month.
"This family, they did lose their son. Their son was shot, and they want to know why," Cate Edwards said of Mojarrad.
Raleigh police said Mojarrad threatened an officer with a knife, and the officer shot him in self-defense. The State Bureau of Investigation is still reviewing the case.
"We know that he was hit eight times with bullets and a lot of those wounds are on the side and back of his body," Cate Edwards said.
Regarding Lee's death, Kirby said, "Gas lines are not supposed to explode. Buildings shouldn't collapse. People shouldn't die."
"Our goal is to investigate, try to get to the bottom of it, try to hold those accountable who caused this terrible tragedy to happen," he said.
The firm also represents the family of Everett Copeland, a 5-year-old who was crushed by a runaway dump truck outside his Hillsborough home in 2016; hundreds of U.S. sailors and other service members exposed to radiation following a 2011 earthquake and tsunami that damaged the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan; and Alfred Dewayne Brown, who spent nearly a decade on death row in Texas before his conviction was thrown out in 2015 but has never been compensated for his wrongful incarceration.
"Those are high-profile, high-pressure cases," John Edwards said. "This is what we love doing. This is what we do."
"[You] try to restore their lives as best you can through the law, and the second thing you try to accomplish is you try to make sure this doesn't happen to someone else," Kirby added.
John Edwards said his personal struggles – his affair and child with campaign aide Rielle Hunter ended his 2008 presidential run and led to the federal charges against him – help him empathize with families in crisis.
"Sometimes we can't make everything exactly right, but we can usually help people," he said. "It feels like you're actually able to do something with your life that means something."
