ABSTRACT
Clarence Darrow may be the most famous trial lawyer in American history. The principal source of his enduring fame is his role as defense attorney in two of the most sensational legal events of the twentieth century, Meyer Levin's best-selling Compulsion, inspired by the 1924 Leopold and Loeb trial, and Inherit the Wind, the popular dramatization of the 1925 Scopes “monkey” trial, have shaped the popular conception of Clarence Darrow as attorney and orator. But his narrow popular image obscures the breadth of his contribution to the political debates and struggles of his time.
