- Special Watergate prosecutor who won the convictions of Richard Nixon aides H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and John Mitchell in 1974.
- Attorney. Among his clients were John Landis (whom he successfully defended against charges of voluntary manslaughter after Vic Morrow, Renee Chen, and My-ca Dinh Le were killed on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)); George Nichopoulos against charges that he over-prescribed drugs to Elvis Presley; and Exxon in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
- Watergate prosecutor who won convictions against former attorney general John Mitchell, as well as John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman, advisors to President Richard Nixon.
- In 1985, was named by Fortune magazine as of the country's five best trial lawyers.
- Son of a tobacco and strawberry farmer, Robert Gus Neal and Emma Neal. He played football at the University of Wyoming where he graduated with a Bachelor's Degree. He served in the United States Marines. After the Marines, he graduated with a law degree from the Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville, Tennessee and studied tax law at Georgetown University in Washington D.C.
- In 1971, he was a founding member of the law firm, Neal & Hartwell, with Aubrey B. Hartwell in Nashville, Tennessee.
- He is survived by his third wife, Dianne Ferrell Neal; two sisters Lila Neal Ligon of Nashville, Tennessee and Dorothy Neal Boozer of Gallatin, Tennessee; a son, James "Flash" Neal of Nashville; a daughter Julie Neal of Chapel Hill, North Carolina; a stepdaughter Sarah Cooper Nickoloff of Nashville, Tennessee; and five grandchildren.
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