Lloyd Paul Stryker

Lloyd Paul Stryker (5 June 1885 – June 1955) was a 20th-century American attorney known as a "flamboyant criminal lawyer" and "perhaps the most celebrated criminal lawyer since Clarence Darrow", best known as chief of defense in the first criminal trial of Alger Hiss for perjury in 1949.

Background He was born on June 5, 1885, in Chicago to Melancthon Woolsey Stryker (a Presbyterian minister) and Elizabeth Goss. He had five siblings. In 1906 (or 1907), he received a BA from Hamilton College, where his father was president. In 1909, he received an MA in law from New York Law School. In 1933, he received a Doctorate of Humane Letters.

Most famously, Stryker was lead defense counsel in the first of two criminal cases for perjury against Alger Hiss (both held in New York City). Yale Law School's biographical dictionary states, "His skillful, ferocious, and relentless cross-examination of Whittaker Chambers... led to a hung jury."

Later years Stryker's practice dropped off after the Hiss Case. "Successful Trial Tactics, by A.S. Cutler", Indiana Law Journal (Summer 1949)