Trial observers were stunned that O.J.'s lead attorney would risk losing the jury's sympathy with his portrait of Nicole as a heavy-drinking party girl with a string of lovers and an affinity for the friendship of prostitutes and drug users. It was an attempt, some suggested, to imply that there may have been people other than O.J. with a motive for killing her. An hour into Baker's opening statement, Nicole's mother, Juditha, and sister Denise fled the courtroom in tears. Says Laurie Levenson, dean of Baker's alma mater, Loyola of Los Angeles Law School: "It was as close to calling [Nicole] a slut as you can be."
But then, Robert Craig Baker has never been afraid to offend. In 25 years as a civil litigator, mostly defending hospitals in medical malpractice suits, Baker, 55, has developed a reputation as a ruthless opponent. Says one attorney who has faced him: "He's considered meaner than a junkyard dog." If Baker's performance so far is any indicator, his defense of O.J. Simpson in the wrongful death suit brought by the families of Simpson's late wife and Ronald Goldman will be no different. "It's going to be a brawl, like a snake pit," forecasts Dick Tebrizian, a circuit court judge and Baker's former partner.
DeHass recalls a case in which an expert witness—a respected doctor—was being cagey during Baker's cross-examination. "Bob finally just bent over right in front of the doctor and said, 'Doctor, why don't you just jam it all the way up?' " Confronted during a recent pretrial hearing with a transcript from the office of L.A. District Attorney Gil Garcetti, a former classmate of Baker's at the University of Southern California, a contemptuous Baker snapped, "Undoubtedly it's false if it came from Garcetti's office."
Baker has also demonstrated a stubborn contrary streak. Testifying before Congress two years ago, Baker landed on the wrong side of the medical community, which then paid much of his estimated seven-figure income, by arguing against proposed reforms to malpractice laws that would have benefited doctors, hospitals and drug companies, but not consumers—or malpractice lawyers. "He bit the hand that fed him," says L.A. attorney Nathaniel Friedman. "He showed a lot of courage." And apparently lost business. "That testimony did a lot to knock out his earning capacity," says Dr. Malbour Watson, a former L.A. trial lawyer. "Bob had to do something spectacular to get himself back to where he once was, and I think the Simpson trial is the perfect vehicle."
Certainly, Baker is accustomed to life at the top. The son of a successful insurance broker and a homemaker, he grew up in Fresno, Calif., where he was named to the high school all-state football team. In 1960 he entered USC, where he was president of his fraternity. "Bob liked to party and he par-tied hard," says Tebrizian, a former fraternity brother. Living off-campus in an apartment complex known as the Jungle and cruising around in his white Pontiac Bonneville, Baker had no trouble getting dates. Says Tebrizian: "He always knew he had star quality."
As a senior he used it to dazzle sophomore Cheryl Ferraro, whom he married shortly after graduating. After a three-year tour in Vietnam with the Navy, Baker worked his way through Loyola Law School helping his father-in-law run a vending-machine business. Passing the bar exam in 1971, he worked his way up to partner in a large L.A. firm that specialized in malpractice defense. By then the Bakers had three sons: Phillip, now 28, a lawyer who is assisting his father in the O.J. case, Michael, 25, who works for an insurance company, and David, 23, a management trainee at Enterprise Rent-A-Car.
Baker, who started his own firm in 1987, is known as a charismatic courtroom performer with an ability to woo jurors despite his stinging repartee. "He has the most engaging manner with the jury," says Watson. "He talks to them as if it was one friend to another." Notes Sydney Merritt, an attorney who once worked at Baker's firm: "Women find him gorgeous. They ask for his card after the trial's over."
In the case currently on trial, more observers seem to want Baker's scalp than his card. Since taking the job, he has received threatening phone calls, and he and Cheryl—active fund-raisers on the L.A. social circuit—have been snubbed by some of their friends. "The Bakers," Judge Tebrizian says dryly, "are not on the A-list for the holiday season this year."
ANNE-MARIE O'NEILL
MICHELE KELLER and IRENE ZUTELL in Los Angeles
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