Johnnie Lee Cochran Jr. ( KOK-rən; October 2, 1937 – March 29, 2005) was an American attorney from California who was involved in numerous civil rights and police brutality cases throughout his 38-year career. He led the so-called "Dream Team" of defense lawyers during the murder trial of O. J. Simpson.
Cochran also represented Sean Combs, Michael Jackson, Tupac Shakur, Stanley Tookie Williams, Todd Bridges, football player Jim Brown, Snoop Dogg, former heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe, 1992 Los Angeles riot beating victim Reginald Oliver Denny, inmate and activist Geronimo Pratt, and athlete Marion Jones when she faced doping charges during her high school track career.
Cochran was born in 1937 in Shreveport, Louisiana, the great-grandson of a slave. His father, Johnnie Cochran Sr. (October 20, 1916 – April 29, 2018), was an insurance salesman and his mother sold Avon products.
The family relocated to the West Coast during the second wave of the Great Migration, eventually settling in Los Angeles. Cochran was six years old when his family moved into a three bedroom, one bath, wood frame house in West Adams, which was a middle-class neighborhood at that time.
Cochran went to local schools and graduated first in his class from Los Angeles High School in 1955. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in business economics from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1959 and a Juris Doctor from the Loyola Law School in 1962. He was a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, initiated through the Upsilon chapter and the fraternity's 45th Laurel Wreath laureate.
"If you were a person who integrated well, as I was, you got to go to people's houses and envision another life, I knew kids who had things I could only dream of. I remember going to someone's house and seeing a swimming pool. I was like, 'That's great!' Another guy had an archery range in his loft. An archery range! I could not believe it. I had never thought about archery! But it made me get off my butt and say, 'Hey, I can do this!'" - Johnnie Cochran, in The American Lawyer
Los Angeles deputy city attorney
After passing the California bar exam in 1963, Cochran took a position in Los Angeles as a deputy city attorney in the criminal division, handling drunk driving and misdemeanor battery cases.
In 1964, as a deputy city attorney, Cochran prosecuted Lenny Bruce for alleged obscenity, and couldn't convict the foul-mouthed comedian. In 1996, Cochran conceded that his attempt to convict Lenny Bruce was contrary to the 1st Amendment.
In 1965 Cochran entered private practice with Gerald Lenoir, a well-known local criminal lawyer. In 1966, he opened his own firm, Cochran, Atkins & Evans, in Los Angeles.
In his first notable case, Cochran represented Barbara Deadwyler, an African-American widow who sued several police officers who had shot and killed her husband, Leonard Deadwyler. Though Cochran lost the case, it became a turning point in his career. Rather than seeing the case as a defeat, Cochran realized the trial itself had awakened the black community. In reference to the loss, Cochran wrote in The American Lawyer, "those were extremely difficult cases to win in those days. But what Deadwyler confirmed for me was that this issue of police abuse really galvanized the minority community. It taught me that these cases could really get attention."
By the late 1970s, Cochran had established his reputation in the black community. He litigated a number of high-profile police brutality and criminal cases.
Los Angeles County District Attorney's office
In 1978, Cochran returned to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office in the leadership position of First Assistant District Attorney. Though he took a pay cut to do so, joining the government was his way of becoming "one of the good guys, one of the very top rung". He began to strengthen his ties with the political community, alter his image, and work from within to change the system.
Five years later, Cochran returned to private practice, reinventing himself as "the best in the West" by opening the Johnnie L Cochran Jr. law firm. In contrast to his early loss in the Deadwyler case, Cochran won US$760,000 for the family of Ron Settles, a black college football player who, his family claimed, was murdered by the police. In 1990, Cochran joined a succeeding firm, Cochran, Mitchell & Jenna, and joined Cochran, Cherry, Givens & Smith in 1997. The Cochran Firm has grown to have regional offices located in fifteen states.
In most of his cases Cochran represented plaintiffs in tort actions and opposed tort reform. Due to his success as a lawyer, Cochran could encourage settlement simply by his presence on a case. According to Rev. Jesse Jackson, a call to Johnnie Cochran made "corporations and violators shake."
Cochran's well-honed rhetoric and flamboyance in the courtroom has been described as theatrical. His practice as a lawyer earned him great wealth. With his earnings, he bought and drove cars such as a Jaguar and a Rolls-Royce. He owned homes in Los Angeles, two apartments in West Hollywood and a condo in Manhattan. In 2001, Cochran's accountant estimated that within five years he would be worth US$25–50 million.
Before the Simpson case, Cochran had achieved a reputation as a "go-to" lawyer for the rich, as well as a successful advocate for minorities in police brutality and civil rights cases. But the controversial and dramatic Simpson trial made Cochran more widely known, generating a more polarized perception of him.