Defensive star: Wade Smith's reputation as the state's top criminal lawyer is due to more than just not-guilty verdicts.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: Cover Story

Below on Salisbury Street, Raleigh's rush hour has begun. In the worn courtroom, a deputy nods, his shaved head bobbing like a fishing float. Jurors gaze straight ahead at witnesses or at the black-robed judge and occasionally steal glances at spectators behind the rail. One of the spectators, a tall old man in a blue suit with a wilted red carnation, slumps on a bench beside his family.

Robert W. Scott, the son of a governor and U.S. senator, completed his own term as governor 30 years ago. At the defense table sits his daughter. Many considered her election in 2000 as commissioner of agriculture--another office her grandfather once held--as her first step in following her forebears to the governor's mansion. Then came whispers about money in envelopes and schemes to cover its trail. Felony indictments followed, and she resigned in June.

Meg Scott Phipps, 48, says nothing. Speaking for her is a man with the wispy white hair of Robert Frost. After 40 years in practice, Wade Smith is no stranger to high-profile cases. After all, he is, in the judgment of peers who elected him to BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA's Legal Elite, the state's best criminal lawyer. And aside from the defense of Jeffrey MacDonald, the Green Beret doctor who butchered his family in 1970, this might be Smith's biggest case.

He leans forward as he speaks. A master of minutiae with a reputation for meticulous preparation, he questions Bobby McLamb, whom Phipps defeated in the Democratic primary. Afterward, prosecutors allege, she bought his support by illegally paying off $60,000 of his campaign debt. "You had a dream, a vision, of becoming commissioner, didn't you?" "Yes sir," McLamb answers. "The night of the primary election was sad for you, wasn't it?" "Yes sir, disappointing." "You went over to Meg's room at the old Raleigh Hilton, didn't you?" "Yes sir." "You offered her your support, didn't you?"

Smith's voice is soft, conciliatory. He paints during his time off--landscapes real and imagined, among other things--and, at 66, is learning to play the violin. This morning, like most mornings, he rose before day-light to practice for an hour. He plays banjo in his Lost Dog String Band and has picked with the likes of Doc Watson and Tony Rice. In 1994, when former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Phil Carlton was charged in a political eavesdropping scandal, he chose Smith to represent him. He attributes Smith's success in part to his demeanor--an unforced ease combined with a British barrister's respect for protocol. "He's a musician in court. He's still playing that banjo. He knows the rhythm, and he's singing with it all the time."

Smith's record is probably no better than many other top defense lawyers, but those in the know say it can't be measured by not-guilty verdicts. After all, many of his clients are indeed guilty, and except for a cadre of judges and prosecutors, few know about the sentences that, on his behalf, have been trimmed or the charges that have been reduced, dropped or never filed. While some lawyers are good in court and others are masters at negotiating the complex criminal-justice system, he excels at both. "Wade's a realist," says Terrence Boyle, chief U.S. District Court judge for Eastern North Carolina. "Some of the cases that have meant the most to him are ones you'll never hear of."

Bob Scott, 74, leans his chin on his cane and stares glumly at the floor. Today, witnesses have told tales of clandestine money, sex and power. Smith searches over and over for the right chord, the right note.

Ruby and Charlie Smith both dropped out of school in the ninth grade to go to work at Wiscassett Hosiery in Albemarle. After they married, they moved into a $4-a-month, four-room mill house, with cold running water inside and a privy out back. Ruby and...