News Corporation’s Pursuer Had Modest Start

By AMY CHOZICK
NYT

Rupert Murdoch has made a career of painting his critics as elitist, privileged and out of touch. But the English lawyer who stands at the center of the legal battles that have engulfed his News Corporation did not attend a select law school or work at a top London law firm.

In fact, until 2009, when a parliamentary committee heard evidence into accusations of widespread phone hacking at News Corporation’s News of the World tabloid, Mark Lewis, a 47-year-old solicitor from Manchester, had never been inside the House of Commons.

Mr. Lewis is one of a small handful of lawyers who have led the civil litigation against News Corporation over suspected phone hacking at its now-closed News of the World. He has represented nearly 100 clients, including the family of Milly Dowler, the kidnapped 13-year-old whose voice mail is said to have been hacked by the tabloid.

The phone-hacking scandal has not jumped the ocean to the United States, but Mr. Lewis will. On Monday, he will hold meetings in New York to look into filing at least three civil suits related to phone hacking at The News of the World.

(More here.)