Mouthpiece

A Life In -- And Sometimes Just Outside -- The Law

by Edward Hayes; SUSAN LEHMAN

In this colorful memoir, a well-connected attorney chronicles his rise from a working class neighborhood of Queens, New York, to the top of his profession as a Manhattan lawyer who rubs shoulders with the rich and famous--all while maintaining both his street smarts and his sartorial splendor. Hayes learned how the law really works, first as a prosecutor in the high pressure Bronx D.A.'s office during the gritty and turbulent 1970s, and then as a defense attorney. He learned it was a tough game in and out of court, and that he had to play close to the edge to win. He also found he enjoyed fine clothes, good food, and the company of women. (Hayes is reputed to have been the model for the character Thomas Killian in Tom Wolfe's THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES.) After he moved to Manhattan, Hayes traveled in circles of wealth and power--and here he names names, such as Anna Wintour and George Pataki--and his cases involved the Andy Warhol estate and Daniel Libeskind. And, as he did in the Bronx, he worked hard and played hard.

Editions of Mouthpiece

ISBN

9780385511117

Binding/Format

Hardcover

Publisher

Bantam Dell Pub Group

Date

2006

Price

$47.50

Publisher Notes

Edward Hayes is that unusual combination: the likable lawyer, one who could have stepped off the stage of Guys and Dolls or Chicago. Mouthpiece is his story, a colorful, irreverent, and revealing look at the practice of law in modern times and a social and political anatomy of New York City. It recounts Hayes’s childhood in the tough Irish sections of Queens and his eventual escape to the University of Virginia and then to Columbia Law. Not at all white-shoe firm material, Hayes headed to the hair-raising, crime-ridden South Bronx of the midseventies–first as a homicide prosecutor, and then as a defense attorney seeking to free the same sort of people he used to put in jail. Tom Wolfe immortalized this setting in The Bonfire of the Vanities; Ed Hayes was his guide, and he served as the model for the scrappy defense lawyer Tommy Killian. Eventually, Hayes moved his practice to Manhattan, using the rough-and-tumble techniques learned in the Bronx on behalf of the rich and powerful and famous. From a high-stakes legal shootout on the Andy Warhol estate to protecting the World Trade Center visions of architect Daniel Libeskind, Hayes has been behind the scenes of how New York City really operates.

For the tens of millions fascinated by New York’s unique blend of glitter and grime, of idealism and corruption, of avarice and ambition, Mouthpiece provides the ultimate close-up of high-stakes Gotham gamesmanship.

Media Reviews

"Who is Eddie Hays? If you have to ask, he hasn't done his job. MOUTHPIECE, the title of this lively, entertaining and utterly unapologetic autobiography makes him sound like a flak, but he's actually a lawyer...with a colorful history of high profile clients who come to him because, as he repeatedly insists, he gets things done: 'You have a problem, you call me, I'm there."

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