Eddie Redmayne To Play Paul Cravath -- Yup, That Cravath

Attorneys all know the firm Cravath, but not the lawyer behind the name.

onAugust 16, 2016 at 1:32 PMAugust 18, 2016 at 9:44 AM

(Photo by Michael Tullberg/Getty Images)

For the biggest of Biglaw firms, the names we know them by today have become disembodied from the lawyers who originally helmed the firms. Take, for example, “Cravath.” Attorneys all know the name, and associate it with high-quality lawyering and leadership on associate salaries. But in the 1880s it was Paul Cravath, attorney to George Westinghouse, who battled Thomas Edison over the patent for the lightbulb.

This IP fight provided inspiration to Graham Moore, who wrote The Last Days of Night, a work of historical fiction that’s now being made into a movie starring Eddie Redmayne, the Academy Award-winning actor. Law.com details the plot:

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The book follows Cravath, years before he joined the now-famous firm, as he is plucked from obscurity to help Westinghouse battle Thomas Edison for the light bulb patent in an 1887 suit worth the modern-day equivalent of $270 billion and the right to wire America. The cast of characters also includes Nikola Tesla, Alexander Graham Bell and J.P. Morgan.

“I think what attracted me to Paul was that I felt like him,” said Moore, who won a 2015 Academy Award for adapting the “Imitation Game” screenplay. “I was trying to fathom the minds of Edison and Westinghouse and Tesla, these massive geniuses, in just the same way he was.”

So it looks like moviegoers will really get a sense of the lawyer behind the name, a fascinating prospect for modern lawyers, regardless of their firm pedigree. Moore’s research was meticulous, though he did butt up against some privilege issues:

In researching his novel, Moore said, he visited the firm’s offices in search of information on his subject. It turns out that the firm has a box of letters between Cravath and Westinghouse, written as the two plotted against Edison. Moore said that he immediately asked to see it, but was told that, nearly a century after the letters were written, the box is still protected by attorney-client privilege.

Even without the benefit of the privileged letters, it looks like it will be an interesting tale all about the beginnings of American patent law.