In the movie version of Reversal of Fortune, Claus Von Bulow confronts you, saying that your fees are exorbitant. And your response is, "I'm going to squeeze you for whatever you're worth because there are many people who can't afford top notch representation."

If I'm going to represent someone rich, I'm surely going to use his money to help defray the expenses of other cases. For example, the two boys who were on death row--the boys we were portraying in the movie--we just won their case this part year. That case cost a fortune to pursue and we had no resources to do that, not even expenses. So I used the fees that I earned from Von Bulow and Milken and Helmsley to pay for these boys on death row.

Half of my cases are pro-bono at any given time. I have a pro-bono fund that I put some portion of my fees into and we use that whether it's to represent boys on death row or to represent a woman whose children have been taken away from her. Half my cases are pro-bono.

And that hasn't changed?

No, it hasn't changed.

Because from the public point of view, there's always another headline around the corner.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. The media only focuses headline cases. For example, when we won the case of the two boys on death row--it's called the Tison case--I couldn't get any attention. None of the media would focus on that case because they weren't famous. And when we won some other cases in this office that we're very proud of, the focus was always on famous cases. So you get yourself in a little bit of a catch-22 when you take famous cases because they assume that's all you're taking. Most of the cases involve obscure defendants.

Your other criterion with famous celebrities is that you only accept a case when there's a critical issue involved?

That's right, that's still true.

What comes into play in the Mia Farrow case?

I took that case because I thought it could be resolved. I think one of the big issues that's going come up in the next decade is how changing family structures will require a redefinition of the definition of incest. Incest is no longer a genetic factor only, it's a psychological factor.

My own view is that when Woody Allen made a decision to have sex with his daughter, the 19-year-old daughter of his lover, he created a psychologically very damaging competition between mother and daughter. Not to say that should be prohibited by law, but when Woody Allen said he didn't even see the moral dilemma, he was showing his obtuseness as a moral person.

And where does the law come in?

Well the law comes in...we're trying to undo the adoptions at this point and create a situation that's in the best interest of the children. This is a tough case for me because Woody Allen is a real hero and I knew him. I still know him and I still admire him as a filmmaker, but I don't admire him as a person.

He does that happen though? How did you come to take that case?