Trump's Lawyer Has a Plan to Make the Legal System Great Again

Daniel Petrocelli, who made his name in the O.J. civil trial and has repped everyone from Disney to Kesha, is defending the GOP frontrunner’s Trump University in a fraud case headed to trial just as the election heats up.

- Eriq Gardner

DURING A FEBRUARY DEBATE in Houston, Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio took a shot at rival Donald Trump: “There are people who borrowed $36,000 to go to Trump University, and they’re suing now — $36,000 to go to a university that’s a fake school.” Three days later, Trump, stung by the attack, took aim at the judge handling the case, in which thousands of former students claim they were duped into taking out loans to pay for worthless seminars bearing the GOP frontrunner’s name. “It has to do with I’m very, very strong on the border,” Trump said of U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel. “Now, he is Hispanic, I believe. He is a very hostile judge to me.”

Daniel Petrocelli bursts out laughing at the memory. As Trump’s lead lawyer in the case, Petrocelli, 62, faced Curiel in a San Diego courtroom just days later after his client’s incendiary comments. “Trump is a very opinionated guy,” Petrocelli says with a wry smile. “Yeah, it was certainly unusual. I think the judge recognizes the rhetoric that takes place in politics is not for the courtroom, and I think he’s separated the two.”