The real Diehl: appearances can be deceiving, opponents of Charlotte's maverick lawyer to the rich and famous have discovered.

Bill Diehl leans way, way, waaaaay back, tilting onto the rear casters of his office chair as he gazes up at a ceiling tile, pudgy hands folded upon ample paunch, trademark blond tresses cascading onto shoulders, shirt and chinos rumpled. Charlotte's maverick lawyer to the rich and famous is discussing some fine point of jurisprudence, but what's going through your mind is: If that chair topples, will this overstuffed, unkempt slob ever get himself back up?

If you're his client, though, you make yourself listen. And you obey when he tells you to keep your mouth shut when you leave his office. After all, you're paying him $400 an hour, plus a $5,000 to $50,000 signing bonus to take your case. Clients have ranged from mystics - Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the Indian guru with a taste for Rolls Royces who ran afoul of the feds - to moguls such as Bruton Smith, North Carolina's own race-track rajah.

His hottest case at the moment is defending Charlotte Hornets owner George Shinn, accused last year of forcing a woman to perform oral sex. Prosecutors dropped the case without filing charges, but the woman sued, resurrecting the allegations in the civil action.

Diehl, who bears a certain resemblance to a bleach-blonde Sam Kinison, responded as he is wont to do: He filed a countersuit that claims she's a liar, a tart, an exhibitionist and an extortionist. He put a photo of her in a thong bikini in the court file. "They met, she gave him a blow job, she left," he says, summing up his case. "Mr. Shinn didn't get charged because he's not guilty of any crime. This man didn't rape this woman."

That bent for bare-knuckled brawling is one reason Bill Diehl is one of North Carolina's most sought-after trial lawyers. And, billing more than $1 million a year, among its most expensive. He takes both criminal and civil cases. But divorces, at this point, comprise about half his practice. For their money, his clients get a 53-year-old Tortinator, a courtroom killing machine willing to do whatever it takes to waste anyone who gets in his way.

"It doesn't bother me to aggressively attack in a courtroom, even if it means making somebody look bad or be uncomfortable," he admits. "That doesn't cause me lost sleep. I have a sharp tongue. I don't believe in nonsense, and I don't believe in mincing words."

"I tell people he is, without question, the best trial lawyer in North Carolina," says Charlotte family-law specialist Richard Stephens, who has matched wits with Diehl for more than 20 years.