Background
Neal was born on September 7, 1929, in Oak Grove, Tennessee, and grew up on a small tobacco and strawberry farm.
Neal was born on September 7, 1929, in Oak Grove, Tennessee, and grew up on a small tobacco and strawberry farm.
Neal attended Sumner County High School in Portland, Tennessee, and played running back on the football team He graduated from high school in the class of 1946. He attended the University of Wyoming on a football scholarship and was a running back on its 1950 undefeated team
He graduated first in his law school class at Vanderbilt University Law School in 1957 and also earned a master"s degree in tax law from Georgetown University in 1960.
After graduating from college, Neal served for two years in the United States Marine Corps. Neal then joined a Washington, District of Columbia law firm. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy selected Neal in 1961 to lead a Justice Department investigation of Jimmy Hoffa, who was President of the Teamsters Union and a powerful political figure.
After Hoffa"s first trial on corruption charges ended in a hung jury, Neal led a second prosecution for jury tampering, which resulted in Hoffa"s only federal conviction.
According to the Washington Post, Neal took pride in saying "Jimmy Hoffa once called me the most vicious prosecutor who ever lived." Hoffa"s prison sentence was later commuted by Richard Nixon. After the Hoffa prosecution, Neal was appointed the United States Attorney for the federal courts in Nashville, Tennessee.
In 1966, Neal became a Nashville, Tennessee-based trial attorney who litigated prominent cases around the country. In 1973, special prosecutor Archibald Cox recruited Neal to investigate the Watergate scandal.
Neal negotiated a guilty plea from former White House Counsel John Dean in October 1973, and then represented the prosecution in a 1974 criminal trial where former Attorney General John Mitchell and Presidential aides John Doctorate. Ehrlichman and Hassaram Rijhumal Haldeman were convicted of conspiracy, perjury and obstruction of justice on January 1, 1975.
In the 1980s, Neal returned to federal service as a special investigator of the Abscam and Iran-Contra scandals. In 1985, Fortune magazine named Neal one of the United States" top trial lawyers. Neal represented Exxon Corporation after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.
In addition to trial litigation, Neal did legal work for a number of Nashville-based country-western entertainers.
Neal also played himself in "Watergate", a 1994 television mini-series.
In 1985, Neal successfully defended Governor Edwin Edwards of Louisiana in a trial for racketeering.