High Stakes Lawyer

Oakland Hell’s Angels, the Symbionese Liberation Army with their safe house in Concord, and the Chowchilla School Bus Kidnappers were just a few of the cases Will Maas worked on as a young lawyer living in Concord.

He was recruited by the world famous and notorious San Francsico lawyer, Melvin Belli. In many ways they were kindred spirits and while Belli routinely fired staff, Maas not only survived, he became his managing lawyer, supervising a large staff preparing material for trial cases.

Their clients included Erol Flynn, Chuck Berry, Mohammad Ali, The Rolling Stones, Lana Turner, Tony Curtis, Mae West and many of the rich and famous. They defended Zsa Zsa Gabor when Elk Summers sued Gabo for calling her ‘a financially strapped Hollywood has been.’ Defrocked TV evangelists Jim and Tami Baker were so pleased with Belli’s representation they gave him a gold-plated bible.

In his book, In Lincoln’s Footsteps, Maas takes the reader behind the scenes of the court room and into the high-stakes world of California’s criminal underworld from the 1960s to the 2010. He exposes us to the darkest corners of society.

Maas worked as close as anybody was allowed, on a daily basis with the man Life Magazine had crowned in 1954, "The King of Torts.” In Maas’s book “Richer than the King of Torts,” Melvin Belli is stripped down to his white billowing boxer shorts, wandering between connected hotel rooms in Chicago. He is reduced to human dimensions in a lonely scene with Will Maas, munching on leftover fried chicken from the refrigerator served by his butler, at a sprawling dining table in his dark, empty Pacific Heights mansion. Belli is shown as raw, passionate, and funny. He was mean-spirited, ruthless and cruel. He and Mass parted company over Belli’s refusal to pay his trusted manager some duly earned compensation, for work over and above his normal responsibilities. A trivial and insignificant amount for Belli, for Maas it was a matter of principal. They later made up, and remained friends, but Maas left and started his own legal practice.

His law firm took on some of the state's most notorious cases. He successfully defended The Mitchell brothers, Jim and Art, from Antioch, whom Time Magazine called, ‘The Potentates of Pornography.’ and resolved 150 criminal cases pending in San Francsico, Hayward, Santa Ana, attempting to shut down their allegedly, ‘pornographic’ theaters. He was a defense lawyer in the infamous murder trial, the chilling Golden Gate Park Barrels case. The bodies of a man and two women were found inside two cement-sealed steel drums that had been left in Golden Gate Park. Three more bodies are subsequently found. There were several perpetrators. Maas’s client, Tina Livingston, served 21 months and 21 days instead of the gas chamber.

In 2001 he defended Marcos Ranjel, the accused "Pink Tarantula Beauty Parlor" assassin who received a sentence of life in prison rather than facing death row. That same year Maas was picked by his peers at the San Francisco Public defenders Office as the “Best Male Defender.” His Oscar, a bronze inscribed statue of “Lady Justice” sits in his bookcase at home.

Maas grew up in a small Iowa farm town and joined the army at age 18. He served three tours of duty in Viet Nam, became a paratrooper with the 1st Cavalry Division and later served with the 82nd Airborne Division. In part because of all the killing during the war, Maas was driven by a search for his own redemption to defend the accused. He believed that we are all flawed; all have the potential to murder. There was very little he wouldn’t do in his later life to defend his clients.

After military service, Maas graduated with bachelor's and master's degrees in English and an Ed.S. in Education from the University of Iowa. He received his law degree from John F. Kennedy Law School.

At age 40, he stopped drinking, smoking and realized he needed to take care of his mind and body. He began bicycling marathons, running marathons and completed six triathlons. In 2003 he completed the Olympic distance, International triathlon in San Jose. He also began teaching legal analysis, part-time, at JFK University Law School in Orinda.

In retirement he has become a published author, and through his writings we are able to benefit from his extraordinary legal career, with incredible insights and self-disclosure.

He continues to write and hike the local trails. You will often see this tall, sprightly fair-haired man, for he is your neighbor. He lives in Concord.