13. Science on trial

When James E. Tyrrell Jr. is not around, other lawyers in the wide circles of power and privilege he travels in sometimes refer to him as “the master of disaster,” with a precarious balance of both antipathy and respect. Super Lawyers magazine was one of the first to use that sobriquet to describe Tyrrell, an admiring nod to his work representing corporate clients enmeshed in some of the nastiest legal calamities of the last century. Tyrrell is widely known as a fierce and precise opponent, a champion debater who knows the law and how to use it to the advantage of his clients, who, not surprisingly, love him and pay mightily for his services. The same is not true of his opponents and critics, who accuse him of being rapacious and underhanded. In many ways, he resembles his namesake, Sir James Tyrrell, a fifteenth-century English knight who was a hero to some but a villain to others. Tyrell’s story is a vivid one, immortalized by Shakespeare in Richard III. An honorable nobleman in the House of York, Tyrrell became master of the king’s henchmen after the Duke of Gloucester assumed the throne as Richard III, following the mysterious death of two princes who were in line to become king. After Richard was killed in the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, Tyrrell successfully switched loyalties for a time to Henry VII and again gained positions of power. But he later was accused of treason and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Under torture, Tyrrell was said to have confessed to having had a hand in the murders of the two young princes, but he would not say where their bodies were hidden. Tyrrell’s head was chopped off on May 6, 1502.