Five months after a criminal jury acquitted Blake in the murder of his wife, Dubin's civil case opened. It immediately got heavy media attention.

And this affected his legal strategy.

"You can’t talk to the media unless the other side goes first," he says. "So, Blake goes on Larry King Live and talks trash. Then, I go on Larry King and talk trash.

"The media changes everything," he says. "Juries are influenced by the attention, witnesses are influenced. The cameras are always rolling." And jury selection wasn't easy anyway, in this case. Blake had been acquitted in an equally public trial, and Bakley's history of allegedly exploiting celebrities, identity theft, fraud, and other very public problems didn't endear her - or help her case. "It was a nightmare," Dubin says. "People said Bonny was a gold digger. One potential juror said he hated me."

During presentations, Dubin says he was forced to consider visuals to help television coverage. "TV wants visuals. So I did PowerPoint presentations during my statements. I took [defense attorney Thomas] Mesereau’s statements from the criminal trial and rebutted them on screen. I chose colors carefully; dark for when I described the night Bonny was shot, pastels with Bakley’s family photos," he says. "You learn to play the game, to get what you want out of it."

In high-profile cases, attorneys should also expect some high-profile attorneys on the opposing side, Dubin advises. "There'll be big-time competition - big egos, too." He recalled how Mesereau (who had previously successfully defended singer Michael Jackson in a child molestation case) "was very aggressive when I was taking Blake’s deposition in jail. I took a lot of verbal abuse from him."

Blake's civil attorney, the so-called "unbeatable" Peter Ezzell, also put up a stiff - and public - fight. "There was an e-mail he sent to me, taunting me on his record of victories. He even said he was going to sue me for malpractice," Dubin recalls. And the defense got the upper hand a number of times. "It got ugly between me and Blake on the witness stand," he says. "He was abusing me, but the judge let it go. That was great for me because I could show the guy was crazy."

Dubin beat the unbeatable Ezzell in the case, and Blake was ordered to pay $30 million in damages (the case is now on appeal). Dubin is now considered a "go to" plaintiff attorney in wrongful death and injury cases. "Once you're in the door, it happens," he says.