1937-
Attorney

Background.

Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in the midst of the Great Depression. In 1943 he and his family moved to California. In 1955 Cochran enrolled in the University of California, Los Angeles and then graduated from Loyola Law School. During the early years of his private practice many cases he defended involved controversial and often racial issues. In 1966 he represented the family of a black man shot by Los Angeles police officers. He was the court-appointed attorney in 1969 for a case involving a member of the Black Panthers, an extremist civil-rights organization. In 1978 Cochran became an assistant district attorney in Los Angeles, the first black to serve in this capacity, and he initiated programs to assist victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. He left the District Attorney's office in 1982 to return to private practice and began to represent high-profile celebrity...