Champion of the underdog: Attorney looks back at 30-year career

As Ron Yengich walks briskly to court this morning, he is pondering his three decades of defending the accused. Sept. 29 will mark 30 years as a criminal defense attorney in Salt Lake City. He noted it on his calendar. It has been on his mind for months.

"Thirty years," he says. "I've spent a lot of time thinking about it."

That's 30 years of taking on some of Utah's most high-profile cases, usually on the side of the underdog and squarely against public sentiment. That's 30 years of having the fate of men resting on his shoulders. Thirty years of representing murderers, drug dealers, thieves. Thirty years of fighting for congressmen, mayors, judges, "Joe Sixpack," pro athletes, actors, religious leaders, journalists. "All manner of disreputables," he says wryly.

It has a way of wearing down a man — of rounding off the sharp points, he says, hoping it hasn't — especially one as passionate and intense as the 57-year-old Yengich. He is famous for his victories, small (plea deals) and big (exoneration), but then sometimes you wonder if it's a fair fight. When this man walks into a courtroom, he's carrying the hopes, struggles and toughness of the old Bingham miners from whom he sprang; he carries the tragedy of his beloved brother Nick Jr. in his heart; he carries the bitterness of his own brief stint in jail and the keen feeling of helplessness in the morass of the justice-system machine.

He carries all that into the courtroom. No wonder he's known as the toughest, scrappiest, not to mention most successful defense attorney in the state.

"Thirty years," he says again as he huffs and puffs his way up the back stairway of the courthouse. "I'm fighting it. How much is left in the well? Can it be replenished? How do I go about doing that? Is it worth it? At this point, I'm deciding where I go from here. Nobody played in the Major Leagues for 30 years. Nobody played in the NFL for 30 years."

He enters the courtroom, where lawyers are gathering to set court dates, and Yengich turns on the charm, working the room like a politician. "How are you doing?" "How are the grandkids?" "Hey, saw your baby! He is a cuuute boy!" He sits down on a bench and puts his arm around a client, a former schoolteacher accused of sexual contact with a student, and they have a quiet discussion about his case.