Clarence Darrow

Born in Ohio in 1857, Clarence Darrow became a lawyer after brief study at Allegheny College and the University of Michigan. He first built his career in the Midwest, working in Ohio and then Chicago, where he moved from corporate law into labor and criminal defense.

He became nationally known for representing trade union leaders and later for some of the most famous trials in American history. Among the cases most closely linked to his name are the Leopold and Loeb murder trial, the Scopes trial in Tennessee, and the defense of Ossian Sweet. He was widely seen as a defender of the underdog and was also known as a public speaker, debater, and author.

Darrow’s reputation endures because he brought big moral questions into the courtroom: punishment, class conflict, race, religion, and the limits of certainty. He died in 1938, but his arguments about mercy, doubt, and civil liberty still feel strikingly modern.