Last Pick

Pierce O'Donnell

Description

A whimsical warmhearted autobiography of a twelve-year-old who became a great trial lawyer

The oldest of four children in a prototypical Irish Catholic family, Pierce O’Donnell recounts growing up in a village with more cows than residents with his WWII-hero father, who owns the only liquor store; his intellectual mother, the librarian; his spinster aunt, the local postmaster; his three younger sisters; and a ghost named Nora. Last Pick adroitly conjures up a bygone era in which this young boy’s biggest concerns were making the Little League Team (he never did), not freezing to death delivering a newspaper, making Eagle Scout, and learning Latin as a reluctant altar boy allergic to incense. This self-deprecating story of a determined, well-meaning underdog will delight O’Donnell’s fellow Baby Boomers and enchant younger generations for years to come with its witty and timeless humor.

Author's Note

Preface

Prologue

Winter

1: Hometown Boy

2: Nora the Ghost

3: "All Aboard!"

4: "Bless Me, Father"

5: Muskrat

6: Peter Pan

Spring

7: Spring Training

8: Incense

9: "Look It Up"

10: Highballs

Summer

11: Mr. Dibble

12: Sister Act

13: The Cousins

14: Last Pick

15: The Methodists

Fall

16: "Yes, Miss Gehle"

17: Happy Thanksgiving

18: "What Did Your Mother Say?"

19: Eating My Way Across Troy

20: Chin-Ups

Sujets

• Droit privé
• Droit privé
• Droit privé
• Droit privé
• Catholicisme
• Law
• Droit et juridique
• Criminal Law
• Droit pénal
• droit pénal
• Droit pénal
• Droit pénal
• Droit pénal

Informations

• Publié par: Rare Bird Books
• Date de parution: 06 décembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781644283516
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Praise for Pierce O’Donnell and His Previous Books
“After reading Last Pick and relishing Pierce’s sweet remembrances of his boyhood, I wish I had been there with him during his upbringing. It would have been wonderful (and fun!) to behold the making of this amazing, thoughtful, exciting, and hugely important legal icon. I am fortunate to be able to be both a client and friend of this outstanding individual.”
—Lew Wolff, Chairman Emeritus, Oakland A’s Major League Baseball Team
“The small-town kid who became one of the West Coast’s hottest trial lawyers…describes his younger self as a nerdy ‘fatso’ who loved baseball with all his heart but had no talent for it.”
—Law360
“One of the most influential lawyers in America.”
—National Law Journal
“Pierce O’Donnell is the new Perry Mason in Hollywood.”
—Forbes Magazine
“The $7 billion collected for his clients—including sale of the Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion—makes him ‘The Billion Dollar Litigator.’”
—Variety
“You watch [Pierce] walk into a courtroom, and he just fills up the room. You just think: Who is that? He looks pretty serious. We better settle.”
—James J. Brosnahan, past president, Bar Association of San Francisco
“[ In Time of War: Hitler’s Terrorist Attack on America is] riveting—a blazing red flag of caution to any government hell-bent on tampering with constitutional rights in a time of crisis.”
—John Grisham
“A masterful account of how the government and those we rely on to preserve our liberties can fail in moments of crisis. [ In Time of War ] is history that speaks to us today.”
—Arthur R. Miller, professor, New York University
“[ In Time of War ] reads like a novel, only it’s all true.”
—David Cole (author of Enemy Alien, 2004 American Book Award winner)
“Pierce O’Donnell is the most creative trial lawyer I have ever faced. A true legal genius, he is also a gifted actor in the courtroom. His strategy for selling the Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion was truly inspired.”
—Bert Fields (author of Summing Up: A Professional Memoir )
“Pierce O’Donnell was a brilliant, fearless, and resourceful lawyer, much like his mentor Edward Bennett Williams. A graduate of Georgetown University Law School in 1972 and a clerk for Supreme Court justice Byron White,…O’Donnell was always willing to fight the good fight for a case and a client he truly believed in. He knew it would be a long, messy, uphill struggle [against Paramount Pictures for using Buchwald’s story as the basis for the Eddie Murphy hit Coming To America ], but O’Donnell was ready. The partnership of Buchwald and O’Donnell was off and running.”
—Michael Hill, Funny Business: The Legendary Life and Political Satire of Art Buchwald
“ Fatal Subtraction is a true and fascinating read.”
—Winston Groom (author of Forrest Gump )
“Super lawyer Pierce O’Donnell and Dennis McDougal have written a step-by-step account of the now historic trial, and you won’t put it down.”
—Larry King
“‘Legal whiz’” Pierce O’Donnell and his humorist client Art Buchwald nailed Paramount Pictures for using Buchwald’s story to create Coming To America as recounted in this ‘spellbinding’ legal drama Fatal Subtraction .
—Kirkus
“Written in a free-flowing style told solely through O’Donnell’s perspective. He’s been called a tiger in the courtroom, but the book shows that he has an eagle’s eye for detail.”
—Pasadena Star-News
“Provocative.” — USA Today
“[T]here’s as much drama here as in a whole season of L.A. Law. ”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“This book is a landmark in that it was the first time that a…David won anything from a Hollywood Goliath…Hollywood is changed forever. A grand read.”
—The Martha’s Vineyard Times
“[ Fatal Subtraction ] is also filled with the kinds of gritty details the tabloids could never concoct—or The Player could even hint at .”
—Los Angeles Magazine
“One absorbing book…provocative…skillfully written…a first-rate and candid depiction of the litigation process.”
—Los Angeles Daily Journal
“Fatal Subtraction is the guidebook to Hollywood dealmaking…Authors Pierce O’Donnell and Dennis McDougal cut through the tangle of contract doublespeak and studio hot air to explain the real financial issues in movie making. Better yet, they do it with style and wit!”
—Playboy
“O’Donnell…clearly has a point. ‘Net profits’ are a scam—the fatal subtraction.”
—Washington Post
“ Buchwald v. Paramount is one of the most controversial cases of Hollywood going to court. Fatal Subtraction is one of the most revealing accounts of how studios make movies and lawyers make lawsuits. And as the title hints, this book is fun to read.”
—Paul Weiler, Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law, Harvard Law School




ALSO BY PIERCE O’DONNELL
Books
In Time of War: Hitler’s Terrorist Attack on America
Dawn’s Early Light
Fatal Subtraction: The Inside Story of Buchwald v. Paramount
(with Dennis McDougal)
Toward A Just and Effective Sentencing System: Agenda for Legislative Reform
(with Michael J. Churgin and Dennis E. Curtis)
Films
Home Team
(with Jeff Lewis)
America Betrayed
(Executive Producer)




This is a Genuine Rare Bird Book
Rare Bird Books 6044 North Figueroa Street Los Angeles, CA 90042 rarebirdbooks.com
Copyright © 2022 by Pierce O’Donnell
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, including but not limited to print, audio, and electronic.
For more information, address: Rare Bird Books Subsidiary Rights Department 6044 North Figueroa Street Los Angeles, CA 90042
Set in Minion
epub isbn : 9781644283516
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request.


To Carmen,
my beloved wife and champion


“When you are old and grey and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep”
William Butler Yeats,
“When You Are Old”
“I never could catch very well, but even as a
grade-schooler I could hit…[I]t’s a good thing
to be able to hit. You hardly ever get picked
last…Despite my weak glove, I made the
team. And I wasn’t last picked.”
Nancy Powers in Mike Schacht,
Mudville Diaries: A Book of
Baseball Memories
“The greatest thing in the world is to know how
to belong to oneself.”
Michel de Montaigne
“Everything that happens to you is your teacher.
The secret is to sit at the feet of your life and be
taught by it.”
Mahatma Gandhi


Contents
Author’s Note
Preface
Prologue
WINTER
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
SPRING
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
SUMMER
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
FALL
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Acknowledgments



Author’s Note
I n 1998, at the age of fifty-one, I started writing down some recollections of my childhood. These musings grew until I had the inspiration to write a memoir of my life growing up in rural upstate New York in the fifties and early sixties. I wrote this book primarily for myself. When I finished a year later, I shared the manuscript with my mother and three sisters—all of whom gave me some “corrections.”
I made some changes based on their comments and my additional recollections about growing up together in a post–World War II nuclear family that played, prayed, and paraded together down Main Street on Fourth of July. Then I put the manuscript in a filing cabinet where it seasoned for over twenty years. When my wife Carmen and I moved in 2018, my only copy of the draft was lost, and I had no digital backup. I was crestfallen, feeling that a part of me had died.
My mother was fond of saying that “things happen for a reason.” Miraculously, while we were again moving in mid–2019, Carmen found the draft at the bottom of a box. Manuscript in hand, I sat down and relived my childhood in vivid Technicolor, grinning from ear to ear and boisterously laughing out loud as I pored over the text.
I don’t know how it happened, but I misplaced it again—and foolishly had not made a copy. As I tore my office and house apart, I cursed my stupidity. Despair and anger competed for center stage of my emotions.
Then, lightning in a bottle struck again: Carmen was cleaning out our garage. Amazingly, she discovered the twice-vanished velobound pages buried in the battered black trunk that my mother had used to go to college during the Depression, and which I took to Georgetown University three decades later. I vowed not to make the same mistake again, converted the PDF to Word, and started editing. But a funny thing happened on the way. Other than some stylistic and grammatical repairs, I barely changed anything.
What follows is the book that I wrote over twenty years ago when the events of my youth a half century earlier may have been fresher in my mind. But maybe not. As I scanned the text, I could close my eyes and conjure up the scene, whether it was fighting frostbite while shoveling snow, fishing at sunrise, meeting Mickey Mantle, or watching “The Boys of Summer” at a doubleheader at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. The innocence of youth and the wonder of fresh discoveries filled many days of my boyhood. In Marcel Proust’s words, I was reliving joys of “a long distant past” thanks to “the immense edifice of memory.”
So, here it is. I hope that you enjoy reading the stories as much as I have recounting them. And see if you don’t ag