Barry Clement Reed was born to Clement Barry and Julia Donahue Reed in
Alameda, California, on January 28, 1927. During
World War II, he served in the
U.S. Army and rose to the rank of
Staff Sergeant before being honorably discharged in 1947. He obtained a
B.S. degree in 1949 from
Holy Cross College where he was captain of the track team. In 1951, Reed married Marie Therese Ash; they had four children: Marie, Debbie, Barry Jr., and Susan. Reed received his
L.L.B. from
Boston College in 1954. He was admitted to the
Massachusetts State Bar in 1955 and entered into private practice in
Boston. He earned a solid reputation as an attorney specializing in
medical malpractice, personal injury, and civil litigation cases. For his legal work, he was honored with the
Clarence Darrow Award for trial excellence. He was president of the
Massachusetts Trial Lawyers Association, a former governor of the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Lawyers, and a co-founder of the
American Society of Law and Medicine. In addition to his legal practice, Reed contributed articles to periodicals and journals, including
American Bar Association Journal. After co-authoring two legal texts, he turned his attention to writing fiction. His first published work was the courtroom drama
The Verdict (1980). In
The New York Times Book Review,
Stanley Ellin noted that Reed's novel, "digging deep into the mysteries of medical, legal and clerical practice, has everything going for it, and makes dramatically potent use of each element." The story centers on a down-on-his-luck lawyer, Frank Galvin, who tries a malpractice case against two prominent Boston doctors whose negligence caused a pregnant woman to go into a coma. The movie industry took immediate notice of
The Verdict. The producers
Richard Zanuck and
David Brown acquired the rights, and a number of top actors expressed interest in playing the Frank Galvin character. After a lengthy process in which multiple writers attempted to adapt the novel, Zanuck and Brown finally chose
David Mamet's screenplay. The 1982 film, also titled
The Verdict, was a critical and commercial success starring
Paul Newman,
Charlotte Rampling,
Jack Warden and
James Mason. The film was directed by
Sidney Lumet and nominated for five
Academy Awards, including
Best Picture. Reed appeared as himself in the short
documentary, "The Making of 'The Verdict'".
The Verdict novel became a bestseller and was translated into a dozen languages. Its success led Reed to write a sequel,
The Choice (1991), which brought back Frank Galvin. For his next two novels,
The Indictment (1994) and
The Deception (1997), Reed introduced protagonist Dan Sheridan, a policeman-turned-defense attorney. Reed's protégé was Jan Schlichtmann, a trial lawyer who became famous for his lawsuit against
W.R. Grace and Company and
Beatrice Foods over leukemia deaths caused by contaminated drinking water in
Woburn, Massachusetts. Schlichtmann's case was the basis for
A Civil Action, which won a
National Book Critics Circle Award and was made into a
1998 film starring
John Travolta. Reed died on July 19, 2002, at a hospital in
Norwood, Massachusetts. He was 75. ==Bibliography==