Finding Redemption: How Picking Up the Phone Can Change a Lawyer's Life

Sean O'Brien, University of Missouri - Kansas City, School of Law

Abstract

The winner of the 2006 ABA Ross Essay Contest debated with himself whether to take a phone call from a death row inmate scheduled to be executed in 9 hours who turned out to be calling to request help for other prisoners. "As I hung up the phone, I experienced a profound awareness that no matter what each of us had previously done in our lives, at that moment Doyle Williams was a better human being than I. If a death row inmate can find redemption, maybe a lawyer can too."