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Defense lawyer Monique Pressley. (Photo courtesy of MSNBC)
Summary: According to NPR, Bill Cosby hired a media savvy lawyer, Monique Pressley, to help with his image.
Accused rapist Bill Cosby has little sympathy from the public, so it was wise of him to hire a media savvy defense attorney to steer the conversation their way. But was his hiring of Monique Pressley motivated by something more? That’s what NPR alluded to.
Pressley has made TV appearances on outlets such as MSNBC and CNN, and she has remained poised when faced with tough questions.
NPR writes, “To watch Pressley on TV, you’d never know this is her first time defending a celebrity this big against charges of this magnitude. In broadcast and cable TV interviews, she is unflappable.”
Pressley appeared on MSNBC, for instance, and she successful shut down famed feminist lawyer Gloria Allred, who is representing several Cosby accusers. Allred challenged Pressley to a debate, and Pressley was not having it.
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“We as attorneys do what attorneys do. We’re not in high school. We don’t debate. We’re not politicians running for office,” Pressley told MSNBC. (Watch the exchange below.)
Pressley received her law degree from Howard University, and she later became an adjunct faculty member there. In 2005, she made history when the debate team she coached beat 18 law schools in a mock trial competition. This was the first win for a historically black law school.
In addition to teaching, Pressley was a public defender and assistant attorney general.
Pressley revealed that Cosby hired her because he heard her talking on a radio show called “Tom Joyner Morning Show.” Lolita Buckner Inniss, a professor at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, told NPR that it was a wise strategy to hire Pressley, an African-American woman.
“Her gender and her race matter, because Bill Cosby is being charged with sexual assault of several women. A large number of those women are white women. I think there’s a certain extent to which the idea of racial solidarity plays in here,” Inniss said. “The idea that if an intelligent, well-spoken black woman stands with Bill Cosby on this, then perhaps some of those people who accuse Bill Cosby are lying.”
