Clarence Darrow

Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer, leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and prominent advocate for Georgist economic reform. He was best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14yearold Robert Bobby Franks . Some of his other notable cases included defending Ossian Sweet, and John T. Scopes in the Scopes Monkey Trial , in which he opposed William Jennings Bryan . Called a sophisticated country lawyer, he remains notable for his wit, which marked him as one of the most famous American lawyers and civil libertarians.

Clarence Darrow was born in Kinsman, Ohio, on April 18, 1857. He was the fifth son of Amirus and Emily Darrow. Both the Darrow and the Eddy families had deep roots in colonial New England, and several of Darrows ancestors served in the American Revolution. Darrows father was an ardent abolitionist and a proud iconoclast and religious freethinker. He was known throughout the town as the village infidel. Emily Darrow was an early supporter of female suffrage and a womens rights advocate. Darrow attended Allegheny College for only one year. Over the summer the Panic of 1873 struck, and Darrow was determined to not be a financial burden to his father any longer. Over the next three years he taught in the winter at the district school in a country community. Clarence attended Allegheny College and the University of Michigan Law School, but did not graduate from either institution. While teaching, Darrow started to study the law on his own, and by the end of his third year of teaching, his

Source: Wikipedia