Johnnie Cochran

Lawyer

• Born: October 2, 1937
• Birthplace: Shreveport, Louisiana
• Died: March 29, 2005
• Place of death: Los Angeles, California

Cochran was a famous personal injury lawyer and criminal defense lawyer for celebrities. He headed the so-called “Dream Team” of attorneys that won an acquittal in O. J. Simpson’s high-profile murder trial.

Early Life

Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. (KAHK-ruhn) was born on October 2, 1937, in Shreveport, Louisiana. His father sold insurance; his grandfather was a sharecropper. Cochran was the oldest of three children. When he was six years old, his family moved to California in search of better economic opportunities. Cochran was an outstanding student at Los Angeles High School. He earned a business degree from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1959 and a law degree from Loyola Marymount University in 1962. In 1959, he married Barbara Berry; they would have two children, Melodie and Tiffany, before divorcing in 1977.

During law school, Cochran became the first African American law student to intern in the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, the legal arm of the city government. Upon graduation, he became a deputy city attorney in the office, one of only three African American deputies. Serving in the criminal division, Cochran showed a talent for trial work. In 1965, he left the office and became associated with an African American criminal defense lawyer. A year later, he opened his own law practice.

Life’s Work

Cochran specialized in taking the cases of African American clients. In most of his cases, he accused the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) of misconduct. At the time, the LAPD was almost entirely white and had a reputation for harsh conduct in minority neighborhoods. Cochran defended African Americans accused of crime on the basis of police wrongdoing. He also soon added tort cases to his repertoire. In several path-breaking civil lawsuits, he sued Los Angeles and other municipalities for police actions. One of his first such cases was that of William Anthony Leonard, who was killed by police officers who wrongly believed he was committing a burglary. The city settled the case for $25,000.

Over the years, the size of the awards that Cochran negotiated steadily increased. Phillip Johns was killed by Inglewood police officers in a case of mistaken identity. Cochran filed a $5 million lawsuit; the city of Inglewood settled the case for $500,000. Cochran brought these suits on a contingency basis, which meant that if the client prevailed, Cochran collected about one third of the award. With a steadily growing roster of lawsuits, Cochran became a very wealthy man. He drove a Rolls-Royce car, wore custom-made suits, and dined in Los Angeles’s finest restaurants. He maintained expensive residences on both coasts. However, his marriage ended in divorce when it was revealed that he had a son with longtime mistress Patricia Sikora. (Sikora brought a palimony lawsuit against Cochran that was settled in 2004.) In 1985, Cochran married Sylvia Dale Mason. In his two autobiographies, Cochran wrote of his pride in achieving material success in his career. However, he also wrote that what was most important to him was achieving justice for his clients and for disenfranchised populations.

In 1978, Cochran joined the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. Although he left a lucrative private practice, he was the third ranking lawyer in the office. He set up procedures to improve LAPD practices and instituted a domestic violence unit. In 1981, he returned to private practice. Cochran brought a $50 million lawsuit against the city of Signal Hill on behalf of the family of college football star Ron Settles, who died in a jail cell in an apparent suicide. The city settled for $760,000 in 1983 after Cochran introduced evidence that Signal Hill police had choked Settles to death.

Cochran’s other notable cases included a $1.3 million settlement he won for Dr. Herbert Avery, who had been beaten by the police; a $2.55 million settlement in the case of Cynthia Wiggins, a Buffalo resident who died after being hit by a car after she exited a bus near a mall; and a $12.9 million settlement from New Jersey after state troopers fired shots into a car that they had stopped, wounding the passengers. In 2000, Cochran won a jury verdict of $240 million against the Walt Disney Company on behalf of two clients who claimed that Disney had copied their idea for a sports complex. The same year, he also reached a $4.5 million settlement in the case of former Black Panther Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt, who was imprisoned for twenty-seven years for murder after a flawed trial. In 2001, Cochran negotiated an $8.75 million settlement from were chosen for Abner Louima, who was brutalized by police officers. That same year, he reached an $18 million settlement with Chicago in the case of LaTanya Haggerty, who was shot and killed by the police when she emerged from a stopped car.

Numerous celebrities relied on Cochran to defend them in criminal matters. He represented football great Jim Brown in 1985, television star Todd Bridges in 1989, rapper Snoop Dogg in 1993, pop singer Michael Jackson in 1993, rapper Tupac Shakur in 1994, basketball player Latrell Sprewell in 1997, and boxer Riddick Bowe in 2003. His most famous defense was of O. J. Simpson, who was tried in 1995 for the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Cochran headed the so-called “Dream Team” of attorneys that won an acquittal for Simpson. Cochran was one of the few lawyers in American history whose fame approached that of his celebrity clients. He hosted the show Johnnie Cochran Tonight on cable network CourtTV. He also was parodied on the NBC situation comedy Seinfeld in the character of lawyer Jackie Chiles.

Cochran also was successful in bringing class-action lawsuits. For example, in 2003 he negotiated a $700 million settlement from several chemical companies accused of polluting Anniston, Alabama. In the years before his death, he worked with Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree in preparing massive class-action lawsuits against the federal government and commercial enterprises to pay reparations for slavery. Cochran was the founding partner of the national personal injury law firm of Cochran Cherry Givens & Smith. By 2010, the firm has grown to nineteen offices in fourteen states and more than 120 lawyers.

Cochran died on March 29, 2005, from a brain tumor. The city of Los Angles named the elementary school he attended in his honor. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of Los Angeles opened the Cochran Brain Tumor Center in 2007.

Significance

Cochran was one of the most successful personal injury lawyers of his generation. He specialized in cases of police misconduct—especially against minorities—and secured huge awards. Cochran believed that he was continuing the civil rights struggle through tort law. As a criminal defense lawyer, he represented numerous celebrity clients, most famously Simpson. He was a flamboyant and successful trial lawyer who established a rapport with juries with colorful language and memorable rhymes. Although he often was at odds with police departments, he supported the decision of his son Jonathan to become a California Highway Patrol officer. Cochran made millions of dollars from his lawsuits but also was generous in gifts to his alma mater, UCLA, and to charities.

Bibliography

Berry, Barbara Cochran, and Joanne Parrent. Life After Johnnie Cochran: Why I Left the Sweetest-Talking, Most Successful Black Lawyer in L.A. New York: Basic Books, 1995. A memoir by Cochran’s first wife that accuses Cochran of abuse and infidelity.

Blakely, Gloria. Johnnie Cochran: Attorney and Civil Rights Advocate. New York: Chelsea House, 2007. A biography aimed at young adults.

Bugliosi, Vincent. Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O.J. Simpson Got Away with Murder. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008. An experienced lawyer critically reviews the outcome of the O. J. Simpson trial, as well as Cochran’s role as lead trial lawyer.

Cochran, Johnnie, and David Fisher. A Lawyer’s Life. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2002. Cochran’s second memoir, in which he describes his lawsuits as part of a larger campaign on behalf of social justice.

Cochran, Johnnie, and Tim Rutten. Journey to Justice. New York: Ballantine Books, 1997. Cochran’s first memoir, in which he describes his early life, career, and cases.