It is one of those cases in which observers and even jurors might have a hard time deciding whom to root for.

The nation's powerful association of trial lawyers and one of the country's largest banks faced off in federal court in the District this week, waging a multimillion-dollar lawsuit over a failed 2007 deal to finance a home - namely, the trade group's $105 million purchase of a trophy office tower in downtown Washington.

For anyone stung by the collapse of the nation's housing and credit markets that began three years ago, the breach-of-contract case before U.S. District Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth offered a generous helping of schadenfraude with two parties easily caricatured as bullying trial lawyers and greedy bankers.

As jurors began deliberating Thursday, the eight-day trial yielded an unflattering exhibit of lending practices just blocks from Capitol Hill - where lawmakers are contemplating overhauling the nation's mortgage financing system - and raised doubts about whether even the most sophisticated and legally skilled buyers can recoup losses.

Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, said the complaints aired by trial lawyers are problems regularly encountered by many commercial and residential borrowers.

"How many home buyers have gone to the closing table to find, number one, that closing is not going to happen, or two, the deal has changed? It happens all the time," Rheingold said. "We need to change how mortgage lending works."

In dispute was the trial lawyers' effort to buy an 11-story jewel in Washington's fashionable Gallery Place district.

For the 25,000-member American Association for Justice - also known as the Association of Trial Lawyers of America - the newly completed tower at 777 Sixth Street NW promised easy Metro access, wealthy law firm tenants and 190,000 square feet of Class A space across from the Verizon Center. All were a step up from the association's previous headquarters in Georgetown.

Wachovia agreed in June 2007 to provide the association an $89.5 million, 10-year, interest-only mortgage, which it would pool with other commercial mortgages and sell off in slices to investors.

However, in October, weeks before closing, the bank pulled out, citing a "materially adverse change," as problems in the subprime home mortgage sector spread, and loan requirements drastically tightened. The sides dispute whether the market changes were enough to trigger the pullout.

Pretrial court orders made clear that each side knew that for some jurors, choosing a winner would be akin to picking one's poison.

Although the parties promised in those orders to "not make any derogatory comments generally about trial lawyers," nor "banks or Wall Street," each cast itself at trial as the underdog and threw plenty of Washington alpha-dog jabs.

Wachovia lead counsel Mark William Ryan, of Chicago-based Mayer Brown, said that the association was the most sophisticated buyer conceivable, represented by Washington powerhouse firm Patton, Boggs and real estate adviser the Staubach Company.

"Clearly all the terms were going to be in writing," Wachovia loan officer Sandor Biderman testified. "These were attorneys we were dealing with."

Invoking the association's self-described reputation as "street fighters" and "tough guys," Ryan in closing arguments characterized its position as, "We didn't get it in writing, but we're going to sue you anyway."

Ryan added, "They're bullies, and they bullied the wrong guy."

Association lead counsel Stephen D. Susman, of the Houston-based firm Susman Godfrey, one of the country's top litigation boutiques, replied in kind, suggesting that Wachovia put profit ahead of promises.

"I thought we weren't going to be calling each other names, but guess what banks do, and guess what Wachovia is," Susman said.

The association found that Wachovia executives cheered on workers in internal e-mails to make loan commitments and then aggressively restructure them by using "materially adverse change" clauses as leverage. Even as they promised during loan negotiations to "stand by" the association, executives were advising loan managers to halt 10-year and interest-only loans like the association's, and undo interest rate-lock agreements, such as the one the association paid an extra $1.8 million to lock in a 6 percent rate.

A verdict for the bank, Susman told jurors, means "you will be approving Wachovia's practice of . . . bully[ing] customers."

Susman added, "If the trial lawyers association can't make a bank like Wachovia honor the terms of a contract here, then who can?"

For followers of the financial meltdown, the trial presented ironies large and small. Wachovia issued its last commercial mortgage-backed securities deal that November, but could not stop losses that led the government to force the bank's sale in December 2008.

The association eventually bought the building for $123 million as minority partner with a large pension plan investment fund. But due to the recession, its claimed losses from foregone naming rights and tenant income fell from more than $120 million to $6.7 million.