CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — At age 11, Jessica Grant used to turn her bedroom into a courtroom and play at being a lawyer.
She's not playing anymore.
At age 44, she led the state of New Hampshire to a $236 million verdict last week against Exxon Mobil Corp. in a case over groundwater contamination by the gasoline additive MTBE. It is the largest verdict by far in New Hampshire's history and the largest of any MTBE case nationwide.
"It was an extremely hard-fought case," Grant said. "It was like doing hand-to-hand combat every day."
It wasn't her first dramatic courtroom victory.