In several interviews, not a single attorney offered a weakness in Boies' legal skills. He is so well respected that even his adversaries speak highly of him. Russell Frackman, who argued opposite Boies on the Napster case, remembers what many people have referred to as Boies' photographic memory. "My memory is that he went up to the podium with nothing more than a pencil and I had an entire library in my arms, because that's the way that I do it," Frackman said. "I couldn't tell you any weaknesses. If you have any you want to share with me I'd be happy to use them." Even judges have appeared smitten with Boies. Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who presided over the Microsoft case, was quoted in a recent New Yorker article saying that Boies was the best attorney that ever appeared in his courtroom. Others have made similarly glowing remarks. One judge, who ran into Boies at a Manhattan restaurant, introduced the attorney to her friend as "a remarkable talent, the finest lawyer that's ever appeared before me in court", recalls Boies' friend Miller, who was him at the time of the encounter. Fred von Lohmann, a copyright attorney with the firm Morrison & Foerster, offers this explanation: "If you're an appellate court judge you wish every attorney that appeared before you was David Boies. He's reasonable, he wants to talk about the law, and he doesn't defend his clients' unreasonable positions." That's good news for Boies, because he may well need to muster all his charms when he returns to the ring with judge Marilyn Hall Patel, whose hardline approach and original injunction against Napster set the tone for the case. Regardless of how he is received inside the courtroom, Boies is sure to draw on his skill with the news media outside the trial as well. "Notice how often he gets interviewed, and when he steps outside of the courtroom, and notice how often he's got a nice message to offer people," Kovacic said. "He explains why a case makes sense in a way that people can understand, instead of in a lot of arcane legal mumbo-jumbo." Boies first showed his media acumen during the Microsoft trial, when he would regularly brief reporters outside the courtroom and even join them for drinks after trial at the local pubs. His media-friendly persona was further employed during Gore's bid for the presidency, when Boies was regularly interviewed on national TV and by print reporters -- an invaluable asset to any political campaign obsessed with public opinion polls. In the Napster case, Boies will once again bridge the very different worlds of Washington officialdom and the wilds of the Internet, this time by way of Hollywood. The one-time rogue Web site is thrusting itself into the political arena as it becomes known increasingly to mainstream America, urging the estimated 51 million people who use its file-swapping software to lobby their congressional representatives and form "advocacy chapters" nationwide. Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Orrin Hatch (Republican, Utah) said he will call for congressional hearings. Lobbyists are turning up the heat for Congress to rewrite the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a federal law that is central to the Napster lawsuit. Both sides have enlisted Washington veterans to bolster their ranks. Napster has hired a former Hatch aide as its policy director, and the Recording Industry Association of America has recruited former GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole. With players like these on all sides, and stakes piled high in both dollars and political capital, Boies is right in his element. And the long odds of winning probably make the contest even more appealing to the gambling side of the attorney, who is known to shoot craps in his spare time -- placing multiple bets on the longest shots at the table. If trial handicappers are to be believed, he may need all the luck he can get. Take me to back Pt I/ Trying to keep downloads free Take me to the MP3 Special Have your say instantly, and see what others have said. Click on the TalkBack button and go to the Napster Debate. Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom. And read what others have said.