And Give Up Showbiz?: How Fred Levin Beat Big Tobacco, Avoided Two Murder Prosecutions, Became a Chief of Ghana, Earned Boxing Manager of the Year & Transformed American Law

Josh Young

Sep 2014 · BenBella Books, Inc.

About this ebook

From a New York Times–bestselling author, a hilarious portrait of a legendary, larger-than-life trial lawyer.
 
In the early nineties, Big Tobacco was making a killing. There was no entity more powerful, and national tobacco-related deaths numbered in the hundreds of thousands each year. The economic loss from smoking-related illnesses was billions of dollars. And yet, Big Tobacco had never paid a nickel in court—until one Southern small-town lawyer figured out how Florida could sue to reimburse the state for health care costs. The end result? Beyond the $13 billion settlement, hundreds of thousands of American lives have been, and will continue to be, saved.
 
Meet Fred Levin. Called by his own son “a philanthropist and a cockroach,” Fred Levin is no ordinary attorney, and his remarkable story is far from squeaky clean.
 
And Give Up Showbiz? offers an entertaining close-up look into the extraordinary life of the top trial lawyer who was a pioneer in establishing American personal injury law. Seen as an inspiring innovator by some and a flamboyant self-promoter by others, Levin has not only fought against Big Tobacco, he has won victories for women, African Americans, and workers everywhere.
 
But Levin’s unprecedented legal career is just one aspect of his roller-coaster life story. From managing one of the world’s greatest boxers to avoiding multiple disbarment attempts, from becoming a chief in Ghana to being a person of interest in two separate murder investigations, his story reads like a novel suitable for the silver screen. And Give Up Showbiz? is both shockingly candid and wildly funny.

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And Give Up Showbiz

About the author

Josh Young, a bestselling author and journalist for the past quarter-century, specializes in cowriting books with notable leaders in their fields and celebrities. He has coauthored seven national bestsellers, including five New York Times bestsellers. He coauthored Deal or No Deal host Howie Mandel’s Here’s the Deal: Don’t Touch Me; Bob Newhart’s landmark comedic memoir, I Shouldn’t Be Doing This; actor/Fox TV commentator Wayne Rogers’ iconoclastic business book, Make Your Own Rules: A Renegade Guide to Unconventional Success; actor Jim Belushi’s Real Men Don’t Apologize; and comedian Jay Mohr’s Gasping for Air Time: Two Years In the Trenches of Saturday Night Live. He is also the coauthor with Dr. Sam Parnia of the New York Times bestseller Erasing Death: The Science That Is Rewriting the Boundaries Between Life and Death; and of The Link: Uncovering Our Oldest Ancestor with Colin Tudge, Young has written for numerous publications, including for two years at the New York Times, a year for Esquire as a contributing writer, for three years at Life magazine, for five years at Entertainment Weekly as a contributing writer, and for four years at John Kennedy’s George as a contributing editor. Young has appeared on several national television shows, including: The Today Show, ABC’s World News Tonight, The O’Reilly Factor, Entertainment Tonight, PBS, MSNBC’s Morning Joe, and Rivera Live.