Johnnie L Jr Cochran

When the Los Angeles Board of Education last month renamed her middle school in honor of the late Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., eighth-grader Markeisha Garrett was thrilled. She knew of him as a lawyer who "helped a lot of people" and thought that other things, such as a street, should be named after him too. City Councilman Herb J. Wesson Jr. thought the same thing.

Barely a year after Johnnie L. Cochran Jr.'s death, major changes at his Los Angeles-based law firm have startled and angered many in the city's black community. Though Cochran became internationally famous for his successful defense of O.J. Simpson on murder charges in 1995, he previously made his reputation in legal circles and in the black community for taking on police abuse and civil rights cases.

Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., the masterful attorney who gained prominence as an early advocate for victims of police abuse then achieved worldwide fame for successfully defending football star O.J. Simpson against murder charges, died Tuesday. He was 67. Cochran died of an inoperable brain tumor at his home in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, said his brother-in-law Bill Baker. The tumor was diagnosed in December 2003, Baker said.

In one of the greatest of his late poems, "The Municipal Gallery Revisited," Yeats described coming suddenly upon one of his friends' portraits: "And here's John Synge himself, that rooted man." That was the line that came to mind this week, when, after a long illness, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. died at the untimely age of 67. We were friends for many years and collaborated on his bestselling memoir, "Journey to Justice." O.J.

In a funeral overflowing with guests and speakers, emotions and stories, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., the charismatic attorney who became a household name after successfully defending O.J. Simpson, was eulogized as a man who saw his real calling in the civil rights cases that he undertook on his "journey to justice."

Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. once wrote of the O.J. Simpson murder case, "At the end of that trial, not one of the participants walked out of that courthouse the same person he had been only months earlier." And among the major players in that courtroom drama, one of the few who emerged more successful than when he entered was the lead defense attorney, Johnnie Cochran. Many others left with their reputations sullied, fairly or not. Judge Lance Ito -- criticized as an ineffectual jurist.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear a dispute involving a disgruntled former client of lawyer Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., to decide a potentially significant 1st Amendment question: Can a person who defamed a public figure in the past be forever banned from speaking about him in public in the future? In 1983, Ulysses Tory asked Cochran to represent him in a suit against the Los Angeles Police Department.

Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. has himself a honey of a case. The lawyer who helped win O.J. Simpson's acquittal on murder charges made his debut Monday as a member of a new legal team for the family suing Walt Disney Co. over Winnie the Pooh royalties. And on the other side of the courtroom? Daniel Petrocelli, who persuaded a civil jury to hold Simpson liable for the deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., who made his reputation as a criminal attorney defending celebrity clients such as O.J. Simpson and Sean "Puffy" Combs, announced Wednesday that he is opening an office here to take on class-action, personal injury lawsuits against major industries and government agencies.

Pasadena attorney Joe C. Hopkins had landed the biggest case of his 20-year legal career, one that would thrust him into the national spotlight, one with the potential of a huge settlement. Hopkins was representing 16-year-old Donovan Jackson in the Inglewood police beating that had been caught on videotape. He had been on the "Today" show, "Good Morning America" and CNN. He had enlisted help from John Sweeney, a noted attorney who had mentored under one of the best: Johnnie L. Cochran Jr.