Jan Schlichtmann, then and now

The Boston Globe’s Jonathan Saltzman reports today that Beverly lawyer Jan Schlichtmann, famous from the book and movie “A Civil Action,” is as controversial as ever.

I covered Schlichtmann off and on for 15 years. The last time I caught up with him was in 2000. He was a lot younger and less experienced in the 1980s, when he represented eight Woburn families whose children had suffered from leukemia. But I found him to be an odd mixture of charisma, fierce dedication, secretiveness (even with his own clients) and ineptitude.