Stories About Lawyers | 60 Minutes Full Episodes

Redemption (11s)

• Jailhouse lawyers are prisoners who learn about the law while incarcerated to help themselves and other inmates with legal problems, and one successful example is Shan Hopwood, who had a case argued before the US Supreme Court while serving a 12-year sentence for armed bank robbery (13s).
• Since his release, Hopwood has built a resume as a legal scholar, been published in top law journals, and become a professor at Georgetown University, teaching criminal law (41s).
• Hopwood's students know that he's a convicted felon and was an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Illinois less than a decade ago, which he finds ironic (1m9s).
• Hopwood never thought he would become a professor at a top law school, and it still doesn't make sense to him, but he has moved on from his past as a bank robber (1m26s).
• Hopwood was born in David City, Nebraska, and grew up as a bright, cocky, and stubborn kid who hated rules, was a good athlete, and a miserable student (1m50s).
• He won a basketball scholarship to Midland University but partied his way out of it, then joined the Navy and later added drugs to his partying habits (2m5s).
• Hopwood returned to David City, working in a feed lot, but felt unfulfilled and frustrated, wanting to live an exciting life (2m22s).
• One night, he got a call from a friend asking him to come to the local bar, where he was presented with the idea of robbing a bank, which he initially thought was exciting and sounded like easy money (2m42s).
• Months later, Hopwood and his friend started scouting locations, and he realized they might actually go through with the plan (3m22s).
• The idea was to stick up small banks in tiny towns with no police presence and little risk of armed confrontation, but Hopwood was eventually caught and served 11 years in federal prison for stealing $150,000 (3m29s).
• Hopwood was apprehended in an Omaha hotel in July 1998, 10 months after his first robbery, and was found with a composite sketch and evidence in his car (4m8s).
• Shawn was arrested and found with $1,000 in cash, multiple guns, a scanner, binoculars, and other items, leading to his imprisonment in a federal penitentiary in Illinois in May 1999 at the age of 23 (4m23s).
• While in prison, Shawn worked in the safety of the legal library, where he initially found the books intimidating but eventually started reading them, motivated by a Supreme Court ruling that he thought might help him get his sentence reduced (5m14s).
• Shawn spent two months researching his own case but was unable to get any legal relief for himself; however, he was able to assist other prisoners with their cases, discovering that he had an aptitude for the law (5m31s).
• Shawn won the respect of fellow inmates and spent his time reading federal court of appeals cases, finding the law fascinating like a big puzzle (6m4s).
• Three years into his prison term, Shawn got an opportunity to show what he'd learned when a friend and fellow inmate, JN Fellers, asked him to appeal his drug conviction to the Supreme Court (6m25s).
• Shawn initially declined but eventually agreed to take the case, spending months working on the petition, mastering the facts, understanding the statutes and legal precedents, identifying errors, and crafting an argument in the language of the court (6m32s).
• The Supreme Court accepted Fellers' case, written by Shawn, out of over 8,000 petitions filed that year, with the first hint that the brief was written by a prisoner being that it was typed on a typewriter (7m42s).
• Shawn was shocked when he found out that the court had granted Fellers' case, having done something that lawyers often wait their whole lives to do on his first attempt (7m56s).
• Prominent appellate lawyer Seth Waxman agreed to argue Fellers' case before the Supreme Court, but only if Shawn was involved (8m33s).
• Shawn Hopwood worked on a team while in prison, writing a better-than-average C petition, which impressed his team, considering his level of education and exposure to the law (8m35s).
• Hopwood won a case in the Supreme Court, with the help of his mentor, Seth Waxman, a former solicitor general of the United States, who praised his work on a brief (9m5s).
• Hopwood won more cases, including another Supreme Court case, a case in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and several federal district court cases, mostly on resentencing motions for federal prisoners (9m32s).
• Hopwood found a purpose in life while in prison and began to think about his future when he started receiving letters and visits from Anarie Metzner, who had a high school crush on him (9m50s).
• Hopwood decided he wanted to be a lawyer while in prison, but was told by many lawyers that he could not attend law school and would never get licensed due to his crimes (10m2s).
• After his release from prison in 2008, Hopwood saw an ad for a document analyst at Coo Legal Printing, a company that helps attorneys assemble briefs for the Supreme Court, and was hired despite having an 11-year gap in his resume (10m32s).
• Hopwood worked with the Cockle family for three years, completing his undergraduate degree and impressing the lawyers he worked with, which helped him get into the University of Washington law school (11m20s).
• Hopwood won a full scholarship from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and was admitted to the bar after graduating from law school (11m37s).
• Hopwood did well in law school and landed a prestigious clerkship with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (11m49s).
• Hopwood later secured a highly competitive teaching fellowship at Georgetown Law's Appellate Litigation Clinic and was awarded a position as a faculty member after doing well in the fellowship (12m24s).
• Professor Steven Goldblatt is the faculty director for the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown Law, and he believes that having someone like Shon Hopwood, who has lived the experience of spending time in prison, as a credible voice is highly unusual (12m39s).
• Shon Hopwood, who spent 11 years in prison, is now a professor of law at Georgetown and is married to Annie Mner, who is also a law student, and they have two children (13m5s).
• Hopwood's life has turned out in a way that he and his wife did not expect, with many wonderful things happening to them (13m16s).
• Hopwood's main interest is now Criminal Justice Reform, and he advocates for shorter prison sentences for most crimes, as well as more vocational training, drug treatment, and mental health counseling in prisons (13m29s).
• Hopwood believes that prison is not the place for personal growth, and that people are often warehoused and then released into the real world with little support (13m40s).
• Despite the challenges he faced, Hopwood was able to turn his life around with the help of people who provided him with support and guidance (13m53s).

Justice Defenders (14m13s)

• Justice Defenders, an organization founded by Alexander McLean, aims to provide legal training to inmates in Kenya, Uganda, and The Gambia, enabling them to help fellow prisoners receive a fair hearing in court, with over 55 prisons involved in the program (14m31s).
• In Kenya, more than 80% of inmates have never been represented by a lawyer, and Justice Defenders hopes to change this by giving legal training to hundreds of inmates (14m26s).
• The organization also helps some prisoners obtain law degrees, with astounding results, as seen in a visit to Kenya before the pandemic (14m58s).
• The main prison outside Nairobi is severely overcrowded, with over 1,000 inmates, including those accused of various crimes, and most have yet to stand trial due to inability to afford bail (15m11s).
• Alexander McLean, the founder of Justice Defenders, emphasizes the organization's mission to help people without lawyers access justice, with only three men in a group of over 200 prisoners having an attorney (15m40s).
• Most prisoners in Kenya do not know their rights or how the court works, and Justice Defenders aims to provide fair hearings, even if the outcome is a conviction or prison sentence (16m9s).
• Morris Kabiria, a former police officer, was accused of stealing a cell phone and credit card, spent eight years in pre-trial detention, and was eventually sentenced to death for armed robbery, which he claims was a result of being framed (16m41s).
• Justice Defenders has trained 47 inmates at Lata women's prison in Nairobi to be paralegals, providing them with a three-week law course to teach other prisoners about bail, court procedures, and rules of evidence (17m33s).
• Jane Manong, a former school teacher, became a paralegal after being convicted of murdering her allegedly abusive husband and given a mandatory death sentence, and now uses her knowledge to help others (17m54s).
• Alexander McLean, who grew up in South London with a Jamaican father and an English mother, began volunteering to help others as a teenager and first went to Africa at 18 to do hospice work in prisons and hospitals in Uganda, where he witnessed the harsh conditions and decided to make a change (18m36s).
• McLean returned to London, graduated from law school, and instead of taking a high-paying job, he started a charity in 2007 to improve conditions in African prisons, including Nairobi's Kamiti Maximum Security Prison (19m31s).
• At Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, McLean met George Kaba, who was on death row, and began collecting books for the prisoners, as he believed that books could transform people and their circumstances (19m54s).
• The prison authorities had already started an academy with classes from first grade through high school, and with McLean's help, they turned a room into a library, which brought happiness and hope to the prisoners (20m21s).
• McLean wanted to ensure that those accused of crimes had a fair hearing and decided to tap into the lived experience of the poorest people in society, who are disproportionately affected by the law (20m59s).
• In 2012, McLean arranged with the University of London law school for inmates to begin taking a three-year correspondence course, the same one Nelson Mandela took while in prison, to qualify as lawyers (21m9s).
• To qualify for the course, inmates had to pass an entrance exam and have a track record of helping other prisoners while behind bars, regardless of their past crimes (21m17s).
• One of the inmates, Morris Kiria, who was in prison for armed robbery, enrolled in law school and found the learning curve steep, but was determined to make a change (21m51s).
• In a Kenyan prison, inmates participate in a moot court, a mock legal hearing where they roleplay arguing cases, with some playing prosecutors, others the defense, and some acting as judges to render a verdict, while also being observed by prison guards who are also taking law classes (22m13s).
• Willie Oolu, the Chief Inspector at Lata women's prison, has completed his University of London law degree, making him unique among prison guards who train to become lawyers to give legal advice to the people they're guarding (23m0s).
• The goal of the prison system is not to punish inmates but to help them improve their lives and manage them properly so they don't get into conflict with the law again (23m22s).
• A graduation ceremony was held inside a maximum-security prison, where 18 inmates, former prisoners, and guards received their University of London law school degrees (23m39s).
• George Karaba, an inmate who received his law degree, says he's been transformed and will continue to help others even if he doesn't get out of prison, finding satisfaction in seeing people he's helped get released (23m56s).
• George Karaba and others helped Morris Kabiria appeal his death penalty conviction, which was successful, and Kabiria was acquitted of all charges after 13 years in prison (24m20s).
• Morris Kabiria was freed and went back to prison as a full-time employee of Justice Defenders, teaching inmates a lesson he learned in court firsthand: to always look the judge straight in the eye and not keep quiet (24m52s).
• Justice Defenders has provided over 37,000 legal services to prisoners and seen almost 11,000 people released since its inception (25m12s).
• Pauline Neri was released from prison after 5 years for fraud, thanks to the help of Justice Defenders' paralegals, and was greeted by her daughter (25m21s).
• Justice Defenders believes that those who are guilty of offenses should be punished proportionately and equipped to contribute to society one day, while those who are innocent shouldn't be wrongly punished (25m46s).
• The organization relies entirely on donations, spending about $2 million a year, and is trying to expand its work into other prisons in Africa, Europe, and the United States (26m6s).
• Justice Defenders successfully challenged the constitutionality of Kenya's mandatory death sentence law, resulting in a change to the law and making thousands of death row inmates eligible for resentencing (26m28s).
• The work of Justice Defenders is driven by a passion for the law, with a focus on making it accessible to everyone, not just lawyers, the government, or the rich (27m12s).
• Justice Defenders aim to serve 1 million prisoners, with plans to expand into new prisons and countries, and expect to have advised 100,000 inmates in the coming weeks (27m23s).

Defenseless (27m43s)

• In New Orleans, hundreds of people accused of crimes have been stuck in jail without a lawyer due to the city's public defenders being overworked and underfunded, leading them to refuse to represent people charged with serious crimes like rape, robbery, and murder (27m44s).
• The chief public defender, Derwin Bunton, made this decision, stating that the criminal justice system in America is broken and has become a "criminal processing system" where the focus is on sending people to prison rather than determining their innocence (28m17s).
• Bunton describes the system as a "conveyor belt" where people are arrested and processed without consideration of their innocence, with the goal of getting them to prison as quickly as possible (28m47s).
• Derwin Bunton has been the head of the New Orleans Public Defenders office for 8 years, and his staff of 52 lawyers is responsible for representing over 20,000 people a year who cannot afford a private attorney (29m16s).
• The public defenders are handling an overwhelming number of cases, with 50 attorneys handling 22,000 cases, making it impossible to provide adequate representation for each client (29m27s).
• Bunton announced last January that his public defenders would no longer take on felony cases where defendants faced a possible life sentence, leaving hundreds of people in jail without an attorney (29m46s).
• Current and former New Orleans Public Defenders admit that they do not have the time or budget to adequately represent all their clients, and many believe that innocent clients have gone to jail due to lack of representation (30m12s).
• The public defenders are not lacking in skill, with many having attended top law schools and having experience in criminal defense, but they are hindered by the lack of resources and time to devote to each case (30m40s).
• A study by the National Association for Public Defense and the American Bar Association found that Louisiana public defenders are handling nearly five times as much work as they should, with each public defender doing the work of five (31m18s).
• Public defenders have a heavy workload, with some having five times as much work as they can handle competently, which can lead to terrible consequences, similar to what would happen if obstetricians or airline pilots had a similar workload (31m32s).
• Donald Gamble, a man from New Orleans, was arrested in February 2015 for armed robbery, a crime he claims he did not commit, and was assigned a public defender due to his inability to afford a private attorney (32m4s).
• Gamble expressed a lack of confidence in his public defender, Lindsay Samuel, stating that she seemed busy and overworked, and he never felt like she was making progress on his case (32m45s).
• Gamble's case went nowhere for over 10 months, during which time he was locked up in a jail with violent and inhumane conditions, where he was attacked multiple times and had to get a homemade knife for protection (33m9s).
• Lindsay Samuel, Gamble's public defender, quit her job due to feeling overwhelmed and unable to provide adequate representation to her nearly 100 clients facing life in prison (33m41s).
• After Samuel quit, the public defender office started refusing cases, leaving Gamble without representation, but a judge appointed Pamela Metzger, a constitutional scholar, to advise him on his Sixth Amendment right to legal counsel (34m22s).
• Metzger argued that if the state couldn't provide effective representation, the men, including Gamble, should be released immediately, citing the importance of upholding the Constitution and ensuring that everyone has access to proper legal representation (34m39s).
• Metzger emphasized that she wants to live in a city where the Constitution matters and everyone knows that if they get arrested, they will have a lawyer who represents them properly (35m0s).
• A lawyer reviewed the case of Donald Gamble, who was accused of robbery, and found that the eyewitness who identified Gamble was unreliable (35m13s).
• The lawyer examined security camera recordings of the robber and realized that Gamble didn't fit the description, specifically the type of pants he was wearing (35m24s).
• It took the lawyer around four or five hours of work to determine that the wrong guy had been accused, but a public defender with a heavy workload may not have had the time to do the same (35m55s).
• The lawyer, Pamela Meer, presented the evidence to the judge, and the district attorney dropped the case, leading to Gamble's release from jail after 16 months (36m11s).
• Gamble was freed and went to live with his grandmother in Houston, where he was welcomed back home (36m24s).
• The case highlights the issue of innocent people ending up in jail due to inadequate public defense, and the cost of not having a good public defender is not just to the defendant, but also to victims and future victims (36m57s).
• Gamble had always insisted he was innocent, but was so scared in jail that he considered pleading guilty to a lesser sentence, even though he didn't commit the crime (37m25s).
• Derwin Bunton, the city's Chief public defender, says that many clients take plea deals even if they're not guilty because they don't have the time and money to mount a rigorous defense at trial (37m53s).
• Bunton estimates that around 90-95% of cases handled by the public defender's office result in guilty pleas, and many of those people may not have actually committed the crime (38m35s).
• The public defender's office handles a large volume of cases, with around half a million cases stored from the past decade, and Bunton argues that the system has grown too large without adequate counterbalance, leading to the highest incarceration rate in the world (38m24s).
• Jail can be a terrible place, and people may accept plea deals to get out quickly, even if it means pleading guilty to a lesser charge, but these deals can lead to serious consequences when someone has a criminal record (39m1s).
• In Louisiana, having multiple misdemeanors can lead to felony charges, with increased penalties for each subsequent offense, and public defenders often see harsh sentences based on prior felonies and misdemeanors (39m24s).
• Public defenders have reported seeing clients receive harsh sentences for minor crimes, such as 20 years for stealing a flat of soda worth less than $100, and 17 years for possessing half an ounce of weed with no prior violent crimes (39m54s).
• The public defender office in New Orleans has recently received more funding from the state and city, allowing them to hire nine additional attorneys, but the office still plans to turn away cases until they can ensure every client receives a proper defense (40m11s).
• Derwin Bunton, the public defender, emphasizes the need for urgent reform in the criminal justice system to prevent the destruction of lives and ensure that everyone receives a fair defense (40m30s).

Litigation Funding (41m1s)

• Litigation funding is a relatively new, multi-billion-dollar industry where investors fund lawsuits, allowing individuals who cannot afford to sue to take on large corporations, with the investors betting on the lawsuit's success and potentially earning a significant return if it succeeds (41m3s).
• The industry has nearly no rules or oversight, which can be problematic, but it can also help in cases where the plaintiff would otherwise be at a disadvantage due to the defendant's deep pockets (41m55s).
• Craig Underwood's family farm in Ventura County, California, was a major supplier of jalapenos to Huy Fong Foods, the maker of Sriracha hot sauce, but the company abruptly severed ties with Underwood in 2016, causing his business to dry up overnight (42m7s).
• Underwood sued Huy Fong Foods for breach of contract and won $23 million, but the company appealed, and he was unable to collect the money, leading him to consider whether he could survive financially (42m51s).
• Underwood was introduced to an investment firm called Burford Capital, which funds litigants and takes a chunk of their award if they win, and he eventually accepted $4 million from them to help fund his appeal (43m16s).
• Burford Capital's CEO, Christopher Bogart, describes the company's financing as non-recourse, meaning that if the case they are financing does not succeed, they do not get their money back, and the company has invested $5 billion in multiple lawsuits since its founding in 2009 (43m27s).
• Underwood ultimately won the appeal and the $23 million, but he had to pay his lawyers and Burford Capital, which received $8 million, including the $4 million they had invested, and an additional $4 million (44m21s).
• Underwood did not consider Burford Capital's fees predatory, as they had helped him when he could not have gotten money from anyone else, and he felt that they had "rescued" his business (44m49s).
• According to Bogart, investing in litigation can be safer than investing in the stock market, as litigation does not fluctuate in the same way, and Burford Capital's average investment in a single piece of litigation is typically above $5 million (45m13s).
• Litigation funders typically expect to double their investment on average, but there are cases where they can walk away with more money than the plaintiff, although this is rare (45m38s).
• There is no legal limit on the amount of money litigation funders can take, and their deals are often confidential (45m58s).
• Litigation funders carefully vet potential cases and choose ones that are likely to be successful, with a success rate of around 90% (46m16s).
• Clients are free to settle their cases as they see fit, but litigation funders may offer advice, and it's not uncommon for clients to ask for their input (46m42s).
• There are ethics rules for lawyers, but not for litigation funders, which can lead to a lack of transparency and potential pressure on clients to settle (47m5s).
• The lack of regulation in the industry means that litigation funders can remain anonymous in court, and their involvement in cases may not be publicly disclosed (49m2s).
• The US Chamber of Commerce, which represents big businesses, is one entity that has been vocal about the need for regulation and transparency in the industry (48m14s).
• Litigation funding is not just limited to large cases, and some companies offer quick cash to individuals who are suing, with the option to receive cash in as little as 24 hours (49m32s).
• The growth of the litigation funding industry has the potential to reshape the litigation process, including which cases get brought, how long they are pursued, and when they are settled (47m46s).
• The industry's lack of transparency and regulation has raised concerns, particularly among big corporations, which are often the targets of lawsuits funded by these investors (48m24s).
• Hedge funds, foreign government funds, and wealthy individuals are also getting into the litigation funding market, which is expected to continue growing (48m54s).
• In some cases, litigation funders may have their own motivations for funding a lawsuit, such as a personal vendetta, as seen in the case of billionaire Peter Thiel secretly funding Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker (49m7s).
• Litigation funders provide advances to individuals with pending lawsuits, often in personal injury cases, allowing them to pay household bills while waiting for larger settlements, with the condition that if the case is lost, the individual does not have to repay the advance (49m47s).
• However, if the case is won, the individual may have to pay a substantial sum, with some funders charging high rates due to the perceived risk, even in cases with minimal or no risk (50m8s).
• The case of Donald Seik, a former NYPD officer, illustrates this issue, as he was entitled to $90,000 from the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund but received only $10,000 upfront and needed additional funding for medical care (50m32s).
• Seik turned to R&D Legal Funding, which offered to provide faster access to his money, but ultimately charged him an interest rate of 150%, resulting in a repayment of $64,800 on a $2,000 loan (51m53s).
• The argument from the litigation funding industry is that they take a significant risk when investing in these cases, but critics argue that the rates charged are exorbitant and predatory (52m19s).
• The company involved in Seik's case, R&D Legal Funding, was part of a lawsuit brought by the New York Attorney General, which resulted in a settlement and the company providing over $600,000 in debt relief to harmed consumers (52m39s).
• Litigation funders are able to charge high rates because they are not considered loans, but rather investments, and are therefore not subject to usury laws that cap interest rates (53m13s).
• Some legal scholars, such as Maya Steinitz, argue that litigation funding is essential for providing access to the courts for individuals who cannot afford to bring a case, but also believe that the industry should be regulated (53m35s).