Goodbye, Johnnie Cochran. If the name rings a bell, it probably
calls to memory the show trial lawyer who successfully defended
former running back O.J. Simpson against murder charges.
But Cochran, who died March 29 from a brain tumor, was more than
one trial.
He was a UCLA alumnus who fought wrongdoing and injustice where
he saw it, even when others didn’t think it was there.
After the Los Angeles police shot and killed Leonard Deadwyler,
an unarmed black man pulled over for speeding on the way to the
hospital with his pregnant wife, Cochran represented the family in
1966.
From private practice, Cochran dove into public law, taking what
he called “a five-fold pay cut” to become an assistant
district attorney in Los Angeles in 1978, according to a Daily
Telegraph obituary.
He represented Reginald O. Denny, a white trucker beaten by a
mob when riots tore the city apart in 1992.
Cochran and his clients didn’t always come out winners.
But that isn’t why we will remember him. Win or lose, the
cases in which he chose to invest his strength best describe the
type of man he was.
Cochran saw Los Angeles and the world as places where justice
had to be fought for. It’s a lesson for those of us hunting
for work the last quarter of this year. We might think of him as we
weigh career paths, deciding how to mold our own futures.