Lawyer Lynne Stewart took the stand yesterday in her terrorism-related trial.

Her testimony, on the first day of the defense presentation of its case, brought new electricity to a long trial that is examining the limits of what lawyers can do to represent terrorists, in one of the most ambitious terror cases brought by the Justice Department of Attorney General John Ashcroft.

On the stand, Ms. Stewart, 65, looked much like the public school librarian she once was, wearing her gray hair in a proper bowl cut and dressed in a conservative black and brown dress and orthopedic lace-up shoes. But, in a presentation full of contrasts, she described an approach to the law that had led her to the no-holds-barred defense of unpopular, unsavory and dangerously violent clients.

Stewart represents the militant and blind Islamic cleric Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, convicted of conspiracy in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center attacks. She is charged with helping him communicate with the Egyptian-based Islamic Group from prison. The evidence against her is her jailhouse and telephone conversations with her client, secretly recorded by the Government. You can read the details of her case here.

She is being represented by legendary lawyer and American University Law School dean Michael Tigar, who defended Terry Nichols in the Oklahoma City Bombing trial.