One Tough Lawyer and Proud of It: Cris Arguedas '75

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Photographer: Genevieve Shiffrar

When the Gay Students Organization went to court, Cris Arguedas '75 was a student watching from the spectators' seats. Today she's one of the country's top defense lawyers. Think of a big case in recent years--from Patty Hearst and the Jonestown massacre, to corporate scandals involving Enron and Apple—and Arguedas has played a role. O.J. Simpson's defense lawyers hired her to subject him to a mock cross-examination in her famously tough style, after which they decided he wouldn't testify in court.

Arguedas has been steadily amassing awards since Time magazine named her one of the nation's five most promising women lawyers when she was 29. Though she makes few public statements about her clients and even fewer about herself, the honors and the high-profile client list at her Berkeley, Calif., firm keep her in the news. When she helped defend Barry Bonds in his perjury trial this spring, her four-hour cross-examination of Bonds' ex-girlfriend caused an ESPN commentator to call Arguedas "the pitbull with a law degree."

While she loves the intellectual challenge of the law, the rough and tumble world of the courtroom is where she feels most at home. Some names on her client list might seem unexpected for a liberal who grew up debating the Vietnam War around the family dinner table. But to Arguedas, her choices make perfect sense.

She firmly believes that criminal defense lawyers are freedom's last champions. "I defend people who are accused by the government of having done something wrong," she says. "It's my job to make sure the power of the government isn't used to imprison an individual until and unless they have proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt."

—Jane Harrigan