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With a friend from law school, Edwards opened his own firm in 1993, and he could now afford to be choosy. He turned down 50 to 100 cases for every one he accepted. The mere hint that Edwards might be a client's lawyer was enough to produce a generous settlement offer. But given a choice between settling or not, Edwards usually leaned toward going to trial, so supremely confident was he in his ability to read a jury. By 1996 Edwards was rich and one of the best-regarded lawyers in the U.S. He had exceeded every expectation anyone had ever had for him, and then some.
And then the lights went out.
On April 4, 1996, the Edwardses' son Wade was driving his Jeep south on I-40 to the family beach house for spring break. His parents were to join him a few hours later. Wade was their pride and joy, an old soul who was close to his father and had won a top spot in a Voice of America essay contest, the son who helped the father up the mountain. But somewhere near Warsaw, N.C., that day, a gust of wind caught Wade's black Grand Cherokee and spun it out of control. After several swerves, the car flipped over and skidded across the pavement. Wade and his friend Tyler Highsmith were wearing seat belts and had not been drinking. Tyler was able to free himself from the wreckage and walk away. But the roof collapsed on Wade, killing him instantly. A friend drove Edwards to the hospital, where he hugged his son goodbye.
For the next six months and probably longer, John and Elizabeth disappeared. Neither went to work. Friends went by daily to feed them and then put them back to bed. He was bad, and she was worse. He went for long jogs; she lost herself in the Weather Channel. Edwards began attending Bible fellowship classes. Over time, the couple pulled themselves together by focusing on how to best remember their son. They settled on a long stone bench for a picnic area at Wade's high school--designed to suggest a comet with its short but bright life. They plowed hundreds of thousands of dollars into a building across the street to provide after-school assistance to any student who needed it.
A year later, Edwards was running for office. Though he had done little or no political work before and his voting history was spotty (his excuse: he was often too busy with legal cases to vote), Edwards insists he had long been intrigued by the idea of public service. In fact, Wade had told friends his father was considering a run. Edwards' public explanation for his mid-life pivot is that it was merely an extension of his lifelong mission as the Equalizer. "If you can't help enough people being a lawyer, consider being a lawmaker" is how he thought of the plan, according to his 2003 autobiography, Four Trials.