Put the strong, masculine figure in a school with tough kids and you have a certain control. It's very demeaning to the kids and very demeaning to the tough, black guy, but that's how they worked it.

I feel for young people today. When I came out of law school, yes, we were broke, we had kids, we had problems. But it was straightforward. I didn't have to say, "My God, I am $80,000 in debt, I have to get a job, I have to pay it back, my life is ruined otherwise." We were able to go forward and work toward building something new, and that's what we did. Today many lawyers are unable to feel free to be advocates.

You know that question: What do you do when you think the client's guilty? The real question is: What you do when you think a client's innocent?

I took anything that came across my doorstep. I started getting a reputation.

The prosecution makes all the important decisions: what's charged, how much is charged, whether you can get a decent offer. Every defendant becomes an informant today.

I got a job as a children's librarian at PS 175 in Harlem, and that changed everything. That was an epiphany. I didn't know Harlem existed. I didn't know there was such a place, because I grew up in white Queens, where five miles is 100 miles.

How could I have been the valedictorian, the smartest, and never known Harlem existed? As a result, I began a lifelong learning experience, because I could not accept what the party line was with education - that these people want to live like this, these people don't have ambition, they don't want to work. You know, all the usual bullshit.