Serving as the CEO of his own Florida-based law firm — The Baez Law Firm — Jose Baez has remained a prominent criminal defense trial lawyer and continues to gain national media attention for his past and present cases. In 2019, Baez represented disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein in his sexual assault trial. After six months, the lawyer quit because Weinstein reportedly “[communicated] only through other lawyers and [failed] to abide by a fee agreement,” per AP News. The former Hollywood powerhouse actually filed a lawsuit against Baez in 2021 requesting $1 million in returned legal fees.
Despite contentious public opinion on his acquittals, the prolific lawyer was named 2022’s Criminal Defense Lawyer of the Year by The National Trial Lawyers Association. Even decades later, Baez’s cases have been fodder for discussion, such as when radio host Megyn Kelly blasted him during their December 2022 interview saying she “didn’t believe [Baez] for one second” during the Casey Anthony trial. There were even rumors that the lawyer was going to represent the late suspect in the Gabby Petitio murder, boyfriend Brian Laundrie if he was taken to trial, per TMZ.
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According to his website, Baez wears the unofficial title of “‘the most hated lawyer in America” as a “badge of honor.” He explained to Esquire in 2017, “I believe in second chances. I do what I do now because I don’t think people should necessarily have to suffer for the rest of their life for one mistake.”
