Listen to a discussion by a group of students taking a law class.
(man 1)
We need to know about Clarence Darrow and some of his more famous cases.
(woman)
OK, uh, I know that Clarence Darrow was a famous lawyer. What were some of his most famous cases?
(man 2)
He was famous for the Eugene Debs case, and the Loeb-Leopold case, and the Scopes trial.
(woman)
He was also famous for his part in resolving a coal strike.
(man 1)
OK, let's go over each of these cases and make sure we we understand them. The first one was the Eugene Debs case in 1895. Darrow defended Debs, who was the president of the railroad workers union, after the railroad workers went on strike.
(man 2)
Wasn't the strike by the railroad workers called the Pullman Strike?
(man 1)
Yes, it was; it was named after the Pullman, which was a type of railroad car.
(woman)
Uh, the next situation was the Pennsylvania coal strike in 1902. Clarence Darrow was asked by the president of the United States to arbitrate the coal strike.
(man 1)
So this wasn't actually a trial; it was an arbitration.
(woman)
That's true. Now, there are two other trials we need to know about: the Loeb-Leopold trial and the Scopes trial.
(man 2)
The Loeb-Leopold trial was in 1924. This was a very famous murder trial.
(woman)
And Clarence Darrow was the defense attorney in this trial?
(woman)
Now, the last case we need to be familiar with is the Scopes trial, but I don't know much about that.
(man 1)
The Scopes trial in 1925-also known as the Scopes monkey trial--was about evolution, about whether humanity evolved from monkeys.
(woman)
And who was Scopes?
(man 1)
Scopes was a high school biology teacher who was charged with breaking the law because he taught evolution in school.
(woman)
And Clarence Darrow was the defense attorney in this trial?
(man 2)
I think we've covered the information we need to know about Darrow. We know about three of the trials in which he served as defense attorney.
(woman)
And we also know about the strike he helped to arbitrate.