John Edwards Returning To Public Life: Plans To Open Law Firm In September

Disgraced ex-senator and Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards will open a new law firm in September, CNN reports.

Reports indicate that the firm will be based in Raleigh, N.C., and will focus primarily on plaintiff work. Before entering politics in the 1990s, Edwards was a renowned and successful trial lawyer who specialized in medical malpractice, personal injury and product liability cases.

Edwards has made a slow and quiet return to public life, following a series of scandals that marked the end of his political career. In May, The Associated Press reported that Edwards had reactivated his license to practice law, in addition to booking a series of speaking engagements, including one set for Thursday in Florida.

In 1998, Edwards was elected to the Senate from North Carolina, and served one term before running for president in 2004. The Democratic nominee, longtime Massachusetts senator and current Secretary of State John Kerry, chose Edwards as his running mate. In 2008, Edwards ran again for the Democratic nomination, eventually bowing out after placing second in the Iowa caucuses and third in the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries behind Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Edwards admitted to an extramarital affair with campaign videographer Rielle Hunter in August 2008, while his wife Elizabeth was battling the breast cancer that eventually killed her. After denying reports that he fathered a child with Hunter, Edwards eventually admitted paternity of the girl, Quinn.

In a highly publicized trial, Edwards was acquitted of one charge of illegally using nearly $1 million in campaign donations to cover up his affair, while the jury deadlocked on five other charges related to violating campaign finance laws.

“While I do not believe I did anything illegal or ever thought I was doing anything illegal, I did an awful, awful lot that was wrong. There is no one else responsible for my sins,” Edwards said after the proceedings.

Since the trial, Edwards has remained out of the spotlight, retreating to his Chapel Hill mansion and granting no interviews.