Gene Locks is the embodiment of the effective trial lawyer: For a generation he has, by successfully representing victims of negligence, helped change the social and political landscape of not just his region but the nation. Indeed, the 65-year-old Locks is one of America's pioneers of class-action tort litigation, which in a single case can - and often does -- change the lives of thousands of plaintiffs victimized by indifference and sometimes willful negligence. Most of those Locks has represented are blue-collar workers such as Delaware River longshoremen. "I've been representing working people all my life," says Locks. "And it's they who've needed our services most." Locks himself identifies with them closely: Growing up in Philadelphia, Locks worked hard to become a high school football star (defying his coach's predictions); his greatest influences were naturally his parents. (His father, at age 91, approves of his son today.) "I know how hard they worked," Locks says. "And they instilled that ethic in me." Locks went to Princeton, and later Columbia Law School, an elite education that only reinforced his desire to fight social and political injustices through his work.