Alec Baldwin wasn’t the only celebrity making an appearance in a New Mexico courtroom Monday morning.
The controversial actor was there the day before he goes on trial for involuntary manslaughter in the movie-set shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
Baldwin, at the defense table, was flanked by an elite team of lawyers, who argued final motions before New Mexico First Judicial District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer on what evidence can be presented during the trial.
One of the team’s lead attorneys is Alex Spiro, one of the best-known trial lawyers in the country who has become a celebrity in his own right for defending an A-list roster of clients that includes Elon Musk, Jay-Z, Robert Kraft and Megan Thee Stallion, according to a 2023 profile in The New Yorker.
The 41-year-old Harvard Law School graduate has “come to specialize in protecting the rich and famous from the consequences of their poorest decisions,” said the profile, which was headlined, “How Alex Spiro Keeps the Rich and Famous Above the Law.”
As the hearing unfolded Monday, Spiro left it to Luke Nikas, his partner at Quinn, Emanuel, Urquhart & Sullivan, to argue most of the motions. But Spiro may play a much more prominent role once the trial begins Tuesday, given that he’s known to relish trial work, with The New Yorker reporting that the former Manhattan prosecutor likes to conduct most of the openings, closings, and cross-examinations himself.
Spiro is known for “a plainspoken charm that clients and juries find beguiling” and for his “pugnacious style” and “aggressive” cross-examination of witnesses, which he likens to creating “a painting” and telling “a compelling, interwoven story,” both The New Yorker and the Associated Press reported. He’s become sought out by A-list entertainers and business leaders because of his streak of winning victories in high-profile cases.
For example, he successfully defended Musk in a defamation lawsuit brought by a British caver in Thailand, whom the Tesla CEO falsely labeled a “pedo guy” on Twitter in 2018, as both men were trying to devise ways to rescue members of a boys’ soccer team trapped in a flooded cave. Spiro subsequently became a member of Musk’s “inner circle” and his “go-to lawyer,” particularly during his 2022 takeover of Twitter, which involved mass firings and reducing the San Francisco-based social-media platform’s staff by up to 50% in a matter of days.
But such legal representation doesn’t come cheap, which reportedly has become an issue for Baldwin. Since Hutchins’ death, the 66-year-old veteran film and TV star has said he’s lost work opportunities, his “financial outlook has continued to darken” and he’s begun to “shift around some of his real estate assets,” the New York Times reported last month.
Baldwin supports his controversial influencer wife Hilaria Baldwin and their seven young children, with the family announcing that they’re soon to star in a reality TV show about their hectic lives. The Emmy-winning “30 Rock” star must also cover the mounting legal expenses associated with Hutchins’ death, which occurred when he was rehearsing a scene for the Western film “Rust.” Baldwin was handling a gun and pointing it in Hutchins’ direction when the gun accidentally discharged a live round, killing the cinematographer and wounding director Joel Souza.
Among Baldwin’s many challenges, he’s “months late” paying his portion of the multimillion-dollar civil settlement owed to Hutchins’ family for a wrongful death lawsuit her husband brought in 2022, a lawyer for Hutchins’ husband told the New York Times.
Meanwhile, it’s been reported that Spiro charged one client, JP Morgan Chase, $2,025 an hour in 2023 for work on a fraud case, according to Politico. While the bank argued that they were getting overbilled, Spiro’s high hourly rate has became a source of controversy in New York City, after news broke in April that the city had hired Spiro to represent Mayor Eric Adams in a lawsuit accusing him of sexually assaulting a fellow city employee in 1993. Taxpayers are footing the bill for Spiro’s services, though the city insists that it is getting a significant discount, Politico said.
Spiro works out of the Miami office of his law firm, which as 33 branches around the world, The New Yorker reported. At the firm, Spiro has more than a 100 people working with him, and he juggles some 50 cases at a time. A single big case may involve four partners, another eight attorneys below them, and a handful of paralegals, researchers, and investigators, The New Yorker also said.
Spiro calls his legal team his “cavalry,” The New Yorker also reported. They do much of the day-to-day preparation, including the writing of briefs. But once the case goes to trial, Spiro is known to take a prominent role because, as he told The New Yorker, he likens the courtroom environment to “me in my swimming pool.”
The New Yorker said that he has “undeniable magnetism in the courtroom.” Spiro said his “secret sauce” is his photographic memory. “That and my ability to sleep three and a half hours a day and process information quickly,” he told The New Yorker. “If it weren’t for those things, I would have zero chance of survival.”
For a trial lawyer, Spiro also is known for being “shrewd in his choice of jurors,” saying he looks for people he could “take out for a cup of coffee and convince of my point of view.” Jury selection for Baldwin’s trial is set to begin Tuesday. The jury pool will be made up of people from Santa Fe County, with some legal experts saying that local jurors may not be so easily swayed by Baldwin’s celebrity or by arguments from high-priced New York attorneys.
But prosecutors have hurdles to overcome to make their case that Baldwin is guilty of involuntary manslaughter, for which he could be sentenced to 18 months in prison if convicted, The Guardian reported. Prosecutors have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Baldwin was negligent in his use of the gun and that he acted with total disregard or indifference to the safety of others. They are expected to argue that he brought a recklessness to the production.
For reasons that still remain a mystery, a live round ended up in the revolver that Baldwin was handling during his rehearsal with Hutchins and Souza. In March, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the film’s armorer, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter after prosecutors argued that she had failed to follow basic safety protocols and allowed one live round to end up in the weapon, along with dummy rounds. She was sentenced in April to 18 months in prison.
Spiro and Baldwin’s other lawyers will try to show that it is not the job of an actor to make sure real rounds were not in his gun. He also told investigators that he was informed that the gun was safe to use.
Baldwin’s attorneys also plan to attack the gun evidence, and the serious damage done to the revolver during an FBI test, the Associated Press reported. The attorneys say the evidence was destroyed before the defense could have is own experts examine it.
Baldwin said in a 2021 interview with ABC News, and implied in interviews with police, that he never pulled the revolver’s trigger. But the jury is expected to hear testimony from firearms experts who allege the revolver was working properly and could not have fired without pulling the trigger, the AP reported. A key witness also could be Zac Sneesby, a crew member who was holding a boom microphone during the rehearsal, with the AP saying that he will testify that he saw Baldwin pull the trigger.
