Attorney

And the thing is in closing argument to the jury I remember telling the jury this, "You know normally ladies and gentlemen look at all these lawyers they have over there against me and my client and I would be dwarfed by their presence," I said, "but I'm a Bible toting Christian and I brought my sling shot to court with me, ladies and gentlemen. You know my Bible tells me ladies and gentlemen that Jesus spoke in John 10:10 and told us that the thief would come in the night to kill, steal, and destroy, but I have come to give you life and to give you joy abundantly. That must mean that there, that, that, that somewhere there's a robber and a thief somewhere in this courtroom ladies and gentlemen and there they sit." The jury returned a verdict in twenty minutes of $5 million. It was the largest verdict, one of the largest verdicts in the history of the state at the time and the largest verdict an African American lawyer had ever gotten in Alabama. And I rode that verdict for many years. I also remember telling the jury, "Ladies and gentlemen Miller Ephraim has died, but fortunately we were able to read his deposition to you. You know when Knute Rockne went to see George Gipp one day in his hospital room and he was dying, he told him, 'One day when you really need to win a game tell him to win one for me.' Notre Dame [Notre Dame Fighting Irish] was playing in a national championship game against Army [Army West Point Black Knights] and they were behind twelve to nothing at halftime as the story is told. Knute Rockne went into that locker room and told the Fighting Irish what he had to tell them about the story of George Gipp that day and he said, 'Win one for the Gipper.' Ladies and gentlemen, Miller Ephraim is looking down on these proceedings today. He sits with Jesus along the right hand of the Father and expects you to bring him good news based on your verdict; win one for the Miller now." And the jury did. And I sat there for about five or ten minutes after the court was over. A gentleman who was an elected official came to me and said, "Jock [HistoryMaker Jock Smith] do you realize you won the biggest case a black lawyer has ever won in Alabama, but you're sitting there, you haven't moved since the verdict. You should be jumping up and down and be excited." I saw my whole life flash in front of me. I saw my father's [Jacob Smith] death. I heard the edict, "You'll be a good garbage worker." I remember, "You have a gift to speak." All this stuff flashed in front of me and I thanked the Lord for blessing me that day on December 15th, 1988, about four o'clock in the afternoon when the jury not only said $5 million, but said something more important: well done my good and faithful servant. That was the day I knew I had beaten everything that Mr. Stein [ph.] had told my mother [Betty Lou Bowers Nance]. There was no doubt in my mind that was it when the jury, when that foreman of that jury stood up and said $5 million I knew then that I had accomplished something significant. And those were the two cases I most remember before my partnership with Johnnie Cochran. There were some others that I won and settled and made money and it was not making money, it's more to life than that I could tell you about, but it's not gonna tell you about that 'cause that's really not what HistoryMakers [The HistoryMakers] is really about. It's not about money in your pocket, it's about people that you've helped. I've given you some indication.$We started in Columbus, Georgia, because there was a gentleman there named Joe Wiley [Joseph Wiley] that had a preacher, a black preacher who, who was recommending to Givens [Keith Givens]. Though that office only stayed open a year, it didn't live out the true creed of its meaning as the Declaration of Independence says. It still became a cornerstone of the beginnings of Cochran, Cherry, Givens, Smith [Cochran, Cherry, Givens and Smith; The Cochran Firm]. We then merged my Tuskegee [Alabama] office, the Dothan [Alabama] office of Cherry and Givens and the Los Angeles [California] office of Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. [Johnnie Cochran]. His three other offices in the firm probably six months after the origins of July of '98 [1998], so by January of '99 [1999] we were probably sitting with, we were sitting with four offices, Columbus, Georgia; Tuskegee, Alabama; Dothan Alabama; Los Angeles, California. Johnnie had continued his relationship with Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck, the DNA experts, after the O.J. trial [People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson, 1995] and had some kind of arrangement with them in New York [New York]. Six months later after the, so this would have been about a year later, after July of '98 [1998], Johnnie turned over that office to us, so then we had New York as well. He began to trust us, began to entrust more to us based on our earned respect and comradeship together. Cherry [Sam Cherry] and Givens are two white men, so I was the only black, only African American partner in this venture. We began to speak with people in larger cities that we had identified. We kind of redlined the United States, in so called Cochran friendly cities. We had, and the list probably had fifteen, twenty cities on there. We categorized them by priority. Near the top of the list was Atlanta [Georgia]. Chicago [Illinois] was near the top of the list. The District of Columbia [Washington, D.C.] was near the top, and there were some others, I think Memphis [Tennessee] and New Orleans [Louisiana] may have been near the top, Philadelphia [Pennsylvania], some others. And what we began to do was go into these cities and interview these perspective lawyers that we identified based on references that would be good for us and for our operations, to run our operations in these cities. These are lawyers who already had existing firms that were already successful. We didn't take any neophytes on; we took existing lawyers. In, in Atlanta, we selected this Hezekiah Sistrunk [Hezekiah Sistrunk, Jr.] who you know, and in Chicago we selected Jim Montgomery [HistoryMaker James D. Montgomery] who you also know. So, other cities we selected other people. We began to put these offices together. Now I was one of the people that would go and interview these people and I would help make the selections. Like if it got down to a taffy pool I'd go in and say, "You know Johnnie I think we need to go with Jim Montgomery in Chicago. We, we don't, don't need to go with Corboy and Demetrio." Somebody try to say "Ca- ." I said, "No, no, no, no this is an African American firm, no we need to go with Jim Montgomery," and I had to fight for that. I had to fight some of my partners--I won't name them, but I had to fight them 'cause of Jim's age is another thing. They said, "He's too old." "No, no, no, no, no, no this man will be good." Turned out to be right. Same thing in Atlanta, Hezekiah Sistrunk was my choice there. There was another man who was being considered. I said, "No, no we don't need that man. His personal conduct is very questionable. I've seen some things. We don't want this in the firm. Hezekiah Sistrunk." So, we put, we handpicked these people and, and we made some mistakes like any other firm, but we made a lot better choices than we made poor choices and that has sustained the firm and the firm grew to seventeen offices before Johnnie's death. We had opened in New Orleans and St. Louis [Missouri] were the last two offices we opened before Johnnie expired this earth with the Lord--went on to be with the Lord. We had opened D.C. We'd opened Memphis. We'd opened Las Vegas [Nevada]. We, of course as I mentioned already Chicago, Atlanta, and there were others. Los Angeles and New York were already up and running, so we had most of the major cities. We still didn't have Philadelphia. In fact, I would say the only major cities we didn't have at Johnnie's death probably, that I call major African American cities would be probably Philadelphia and Chica- not Chicago, Detroit [Michigan]. We've since opened up in those cities, but we had not at the time of Johnnie's--at the time Johnnie was living.