Sir Patrick Hastings (1880-1952) served as one of Britain's leading trial attorneys from the Edwardian era until well into the 1940s. Considered a brilliant legal mind and an impressive jury persuader, Hastings was involved in some of England's most highly publicized criminal cases of his day. As a young man studying for the Bar, he supported himself by working as a theater critic and noted later that this employment had served him well. Every trial lawyer should study the art of drama, his biographer H. Montgomery Hyde quoted Hastings as saying. "If he does, his speeches will be shorter, his judges will be grateful, and his own success may correspondingly increase."

As the result of his Irish lineage, noted British barrister Sir Patrick Hastings was named after the patron saint of Ireland when he was born on St. Patrick's Day (March 17), 1880. At the time, Hastings' family lived in...