Big N&O story on John Edwards.
Two things here. Edwards didn’t seemed too concerned with poverty while running his law practice:
While Edwards represented many working families, he also went for the big payoffs — making millions suing doctors, hospitals and corporations, building a net worth he has reported at about $30 million. Edwards was not an anti-poverty lawyer, and he did little pro bono work. He did not emphasize fighting poverty when he ran as a moderate, defeating Republican Sen. Lauch Faircloth in 1998, nor during his six years in the Senate.
“The problem is that he has taken as his signature issue something he hasn’t shown a great deal of background or interest in,” said Jack Hawke, a former North Carolina Republican Party chairman. “It’s hard to understand his conversion. That is why the little things have tripped him up.”
….and the Senate was good to him:
Although Edwards has long been rich, he didn’t flaunt it for most of his life. He didn’t have the private jets or fancy clothes of other big-name trial lawyers. He was known for cheap suits, not $400 haircuts.
He lived most of his adult life in Country Club Hills in Raleigh with a house he and Elizabeth sold this year for $1.4 million, not out of line for a top lawyer or doctor in Raleigh. The couple also owns a beach house on Figure Eight Island with a tax value of $2.6 million. According to friends, his interests were boringly suburban: coaching soccer, jogging, attending UNC basketball games.
But since his Senate election, Edwards has traded up to progressively tonier residences — a $3.8 million house near Embassy Row in Washington, a $5.2 million house in Georgetown, and finally a $6 million house, which includes a full-sized indoor basketball court, that he built outside Chapel Hill.
Update: It’s bothered me that I set up the last block quote with “the Senate’s been good” to Edwards, suggesting his Senate term helped Edwards get ‘tonier’ digs. The N&O reporters set it up that way, but I guess it’s just a fact and they were using the Senate term as a timeline.
I realize the $30 million Edwards made in private practice certainly allows him to live anywhere, even if her weren’t a former senator and current presidential candidate. But here’s the question: Would he still build the mansion if he were just any ordinary rich lawyer?
