Harry A. Gair

He was called the United States' most prominent trial lawyer in the field of negligence, or accident law, and unequalled as a court room nemesis to opposing medical witnesses.

His daughter Barbara Scheiber claimed in 2014 that her father and stepmother were the subjects of the 1928 Walker Evans photograph Couple at Coney Island, New York.

Gair's reputation was such that one large insurance company made it a policy to settle all cases with him out of court on the theory that trying to beat him was impossible.

He fulfilled those functions in addition to other professional endeavors, such as the Presidencies of four Bar Associations, including the International Academy of Trial Lawyers.

His clients included victims of derailed trains, plane wrecks, collapsed buildings, exploded cans and many other types of unplanned disaster.