"The police are very uncooperative," said Kazue Akita, an outspoken female lawyer.

During his years in Washington, the outspoken lawyer had harshly criticized what was then a common practice of packing corporate boards with insiders.

Mr. Dershowitz is the Harvard law professor and aggressive, outspoken lawyer who seems to specialize in unpopular causes.

"The party keeps insisting that social stability has to come before everything else," said Pu Zhiqiang, an outspoken lawyer who was ordered not to attend the funeral.

"Absolutely," said Richie Phillips, the umpires' outspoken lawyer.

He has become the most prominent in a string of outspoken lawyers facing persecution.

Yondo Black, an outspoken lawyer and former president of the Cameroon Bar Association, received a three-year prison sentence for subversion in early April 1990.

So there seems to have been miscalculation on both sides, complicated by political considerations and racial tensions, with some outspoken black lawyers and elected officials backing other candidates.

One involves an outspoken black lawyer (Sheila-Scott Wilkinson) who accuses the police of dragging their feet when the victim is black.

At the Bar: An outspoken lawyer tests the limits of lawyerly speech.