Wright Prober Known as Charismatic Litigator

When Chicago lawyer Richard J. Phelan was named last summer to direct the House investigation of Speaker Jim Wright’s financial affairs, some Republicans were immediately suspicious.

Phelan had raised money for Illinois Democratic Sen. Paul Simon’s unsuccessful campaign for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1988. And the Illinois lawyer had been elected as a delegate to the Democratic convention, although he decided not to attend.

But this week, when the House Ethics Committee voted to charge the Texas Democrat with significant violations of House financial conduct rules based on Phelan’s findings, any anxieties that he was a party apologist were laid to rest.

Rather, Phelan’s performance demonstrated traits that those who know him say dominate his professional approach much more than partisan loyalty. He is aggressive, tenacious and charismatic.

“He’s as dynamic and persuasive as anyone you’ll ever meet,” one former associate said.

Some of Wright’s defenders in the House would add another description to that list--ambitious.

“This shows why you should never appoint a guy special counsel unless he’s near retirement,” said a Democratic congressional aide, referring to the 52-year-old Phelan. “He’s too tempted to make a splash.”

Ethics Committee members and some others familiar with the investigation have ardently defended Phelan, saying he was appointed to do a thorough job in a very sensitive case and handled it expertly.

However, some of Wright’s backers have charged that his exhaustive 450-page report on Wright shows that, perhaps to raise his own profile politically, he pulled together a huge amount of largely extraneous information and cast in it in the harshest possible light for the Speaker.

Next week, the committee is expected to release Phelan’s report and begin pondering whether to recommend disciplinary action against Wright for allegedly accepting improper gifts from a businessman friend and evading House limits on outside income.

Phelan’s acquaintances say they are not surprised that he managed to achieve in the Wright inquiry a feat that many others would have considered highly unlikely--persuading two Democratic members of the Ethics Committee to vote against their party’s top House leader.

His record, they note, is one of success. In 1975, the lanky lawyer with the infectious laugh left his position at a Chicago law firm and started his own firm, now Phelan, Pope & John. It has 63 members.

Over the years, they say, he developed a well-earned reputation as a charismatic litigator who could immerse himself in complicated cases and then win over jurors with his interpretation of the evidence.

A Phelan strength is “knowing instinctively how to try a case,” said Bradley Falkof, a former Phelan associate and now a partner with Griffin & Fadden in Chicago. He said Phelan presents his arguments clearly and persuasively in plain language because “you aren’t going to find a jury full of Harvard graduates” on many cases.

Phelan has also had a particular bent for questions of ethics. At the Chicago Bar Assn., of which Phelan was president in 1985 and 1986, executive director Terrence Murphy praised him for “heightening the consciousness” of local lawyers and judges on matters of professional propriety.

Phelan initiated a program that included videotaped sessions on prime issues. “He stepped out front on the subject of improved ethics throughout the legal profession,” Murphy said.

In presenting his findings on Wright in executive sessions before the Ethics Committee, Phelan strove to build credibility and rapport with the members. And, some Democrats have noted privately, he apparently courted support outside the formal meetings as well.

They point to an incident Tuesday night in which Phelan was robbed at gunpoint when walking down a street near the Capitol. His companion at the time, who also was robbed, was Rep. Chester G. Atkins of Massachusetts, one of the two Democratic panel members who a day later cast the crucial votes on the wrongdoing allegations. They had just had dinner together.