"On your feet, L.A. A good man has passed our way."

From Al Martinez in the Los Angeles Times:

A standing ovation for a gutsy lawyer

There aren't a lot of standing ovations for public defenders, and most of the time hardly any notice at all...

In that kind of assemblage, one has to wonder how Jimmy Mac fit in. He was an ex-con who wore a lime-green suit, irritated judges by calling them by their first name and just barely made it into law in the first place.

His real name was James Alfred MacDonald. He died of cancer not long ago, but even dying he was still practically crawling back to the courthouse to take care of his clients, because they were the kind of people he knew like no one else could. Street people. Losers. They needed him.

A guy like that shouldn't die unnoticed...