That Conrad Black wrote a book of his experiences should come as no surprise. Writing is one of the things he does, and his time in Cubicle 30, Unit B-1 at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in central Florida provided the perfect opportunity.

Jonathan Kay’s article in the  National Post about Black’s A Matter of Principle leaves little doubt that he was an angry man, absolute in his belief in his innocence and resolute in his intention of paying back all those he blamed for his circumstances. 

At other points in the book, his tone is decidedly less lofty — even downright nasty. Mr. Black’s iron-clad conviction in his own innocence has been the psychological armour that’s permitted him to carry on in public life, head held high. Yet there is an unfortunate flip side to this sense of complete moral self-assurance: Because he cannot fathom why any intelligent human being could honestly believe his actions to have been criminal (or even unethical), he attributes either stupidity or dishonesty to each critic. Even Mr. Black’s own lawyers get denounced as fools when they fail to embrace their client’s legal theories.

This is the common, maybe even proper, reaction of a man convicted who is certain of his innocence.  Dealing with the cognitive dissonance requires the mind to lay blame, and Black does exactly that.  His lawyers are an obligatory target.

One of his lawyers, Eddie Greenspan of Toronto, was unhappy with being the target of Black’s invective.  Rather than suffer in silence, he decided to speak out via the Globe and Mail.  The initial curiosity, why Black would choose a Canadian criminal defense lawyer to participate in an American trial, is explained.

Conrad Black and I were first-year classmates at Osgoode Hall Law School in 1965. I didn’t really know him at that time, but over the years we have met at different places. On one of those occasions, I stopped to say hello to him in a restaurant. We chatted and at one point he said to me, “You’d better leave, I don’t want people to think I need a criminal lawyer.” I didn’t realize it at the time, but he wasn’t joking.

Years later, Conrad got into the difficulties that ultimately resulted in his criminal trial in Chicago. Early on, he retained me as an adviser. I helped him find a U.S. criminal lawyer, the celebrated Brendan Sullivan, whom he hired. It was understood that if he was charged, Mr. Sullivan would be his lawyer. As that day approached, Mr. Sullivan told Conrad he needed $25-million in addition to the many millions he had already received. That was the first time in my life I ever regretted not being an American lawyer.

When Mr. Sullivan made his request, Conrad came to me and said, “I want you to be my lawyer in Chicago.” I’m Canadian; my practice is here. But Conrad pushed strenuously for me to take the matter on. 

Did  Brendan Sullivan’s retainer stop you dead in your tracks?  Me too.  No matter what the case, or who the defendant, that was a remarkably healthy fee.  Yet, in retrospect, it might have been a far more thoughtful amount than would appear at first blush.  He had come to know his client and the nature of the case.  Perhaps he understood just what would be demanded of him over the next few years, and decided he wasn’t going to sell his soul cheap.  Or maybe, having lived with his client for a while, he didn’t want the case that badly, and charged accordingly.

Greenspan found two excellent lawyers to replace Sullivan, Eddie Genson and Marc Martin, though in retrospect, Black described their experiences as unsavory.

Conrad wrote that he doubted Mr. Genson had ever represented a respectable client and then said of me: Respectable clients “were not his specialty.”

Conrad added that we have a misplaced reverence for the hoods and lowlifes he believes we represent. It is sad to observe this reckless lashing out at his lawyers and those charged with presumably less lofty offences than fraud. Eddie Genson and I have had the privilege over our careers to act for an enormous number of decent, honourable people, just as wrongly charged as Conrad. He has to know that these petty insults are beneath him.

Curiously, just as Black’s time in prison gave him an appreciation of the “lowlifes” with whom he took comfort, he fails to recognize that they are part of the mix of clients in need of a criminal defense.

Greenspan goes on to address Black’s play by play of his trial tactics.

Conrad’s flawed account of his own trial is a reminder of how seldom an accused person actually grasps what is going on in court. Most defendants in a criminal trial realize that they shouldn’t expect to understand the process. That is what hiring experienced criminal counsel is all about.

Black’s descriptions of Greenspan’s cross-examinations run the gamut of brilliance to hackery, hyperbolic on both extremes.

When it comes to Mr. Radler, this key witness was ultimately so completely erased by cross-examination, in Conrad’s description, as to become a non-issue. Mr. Radler, whom Conrad describes as the “rat” (to my water buffalo-cougar-crocodile hybrid), was dismantled to the point where, he writes, the cocksure prosecutors, earlier described as so much younger and more nimble than his own slow, past-it, lawyers, hung their heads like “chastened schoolchildren” and avoided meeting the jurors’ eyes.

Conrad wrote in his book, “Radler was smeared over the floor and walls.” Flattering as this is, I’m really not that violent.

He wrote elsewhere that I destroyed Marie-Josée Kravis of the Hollinger board, to the point of making her look contemptible. As for former Illinois governor Jim Thompson, also on the Hollinger board, testifying against Conrad, I apparently “tore him limb from limb” and “dragged him like an un-housetrained dog to the site of his many incontinences.”

Despite the violent imagery, Black blames Greenspan’s perceived “inadequacy” on his being diabetic.  Having a hard reason upon which to attach blame always makes rationalizing easier, though Greenspan was just as diabetic when he was a water buffalo as a cougar.

Greenspan raises some post conviction public-relations strategy, which is the aspect the most closely skirts revelation of confidential communications, where he felt that Black’s control impaired the defense.

At the time, I didn’t understand why Conrad Black didn’t want me to do what needed to be done: shape the climate in which the trial judge would do her sentencing. I think that, reading this book, I finally do. He writes that when I said to him the verdict amounted to a vindication, what I really meant was that it was a victory for me, personally. Of all that he has written, this is in some ways the saddest passage.

While there has been a great deal of attention paid to Black’s post-conviction proceedings, not the least of which is the Supreme Court’s rejection of vague and dreaded “honest services fraud” for conduct beyond bribes and kickbacks, the inside story of the trial is rarely something that outsiders get to see. 

What may surprise many outside the practice of criminal defense is that defendants rarely view anything beyond a complete acquittal of all charges as successful, and resent their lawyers for taking some pride in the achievement of a less than perfect verdict.  A separation of interests appears between lawyer and client, even if none exists in reality, because the defendant has only one interest, complete and total vindication, usually followed by an apology and perhaps a small block grant for the indignities suffered.  This isn’t a particularly realistic expectation.

By his book, Conrad Black shows us what it looked like from the defendant’s chair.  The most interesting thing is that it apparently looks the same when the defendant is filthy rich as dirt poor.  Either way, one constant is that the lawyer, regardless of relationship, fee paid or degree of success short, will invariably be in the line of fire.  Even if there’s a complete acquittal, since that’s due to the fact of innocence (often with a bit of a deity’s assistance) rather than a lawyer’s effort.

Not only is this a difficult job, but often a thankless one as well.  Eddie Greenspan shouldn’t be surprised.