Prison Break the Right Way from the Man who made a Difference

As to how he made a difference is the fact that he moved on from his troubled past and walked into a more promising future for him and his family.

It was only recent that I read the article on a former bank robber turned promising legal counsel. His name is Shon Hopwood, aged 34, was a former bank robber. Pre employment background checks notes him as once the Jailhouse lawyer as he helped his co inmates check out their cases and have them reopened.

It was during the time when he was serving his sentence in jail (convicted of five robberies in Nebraska in the late ‘90s and was sentenced to 13 years) that he was introduce to the prison law library. It was at this point that he realize he was better in understanding the law rather than breaking it. With staying and reading he then became at the top levels of the American bar from behind bars—“an accomplished Supreme Court practitioner” as what Adam Liptak wrote in his feature of Hopwood in New York Times.

For his first task, he wrote a petition for cert for fellow inmate John Fellers in 2002. The petition was granted that even Supreme Court advocate Seth Waxman was impressed. He held the case (free of charge) with the condition that Hopwood worked with him.

With Waxman delighted with Hopwood’s performances and his help with his fellow inmates, he backed him up for a job as a printer of the Supreme Court where his employer was once reluctant to hire him. fortunately Waxman was respected and looked up for a lawyer that nobody doubted him.

At present Hopwood hopes to apply to law school next year. Richard Friendman, a law professor at the University of Michigan who had worked with Hopwood in recent Supreme Court case said he has already vouched for him for the admission office to save him a spot. Things are definitely looking up for Shon Hopwood.