Kenneth L. Lawson (born April 19, 1963) is the co-director of the Hawai'i Innocence Project, a faculty specialist at the William S. Richardson School of Law, and a former attorney.
While working as a criminal defense lawyer in Cincinnati, Lawson became addicted to opioids and cocaine after being prescribed Percodan and Percocet when he tore his rotator cuff while weightlifting in the year 2000.
Lawson had his license to practice law suspended by the Supreme Court of Ohio in July 2008 for professional misconduct including failure to properly represent clients and theft of funds, was incarcerated in 2009 for conspiracy to obtain prescription drugs, and was disbarred permanently by the Supreme Court of Ohio in 2011 as a result of a second complaint about his actions while addicted.
Released from prison in 2010 and sent to a halfway house in Kalihi, Lawson began working as a research assistant for Randall Roth at the William S. Richardson School of Law.
The award is a tribute to faculty members who exhibit an extraordinary level of subject-level mastery and scholarship, teaching effectiveness, creativity, and personal values that benefit students.
[4] In 1990, he began looking for his biological family, and discovered through Catholic Social Services that he had been born at Longview State Hospital, a mental institution.
[1] Lawson additionally represented high-profile clients including Deion Sanders, Danny Fortson, and Aaron Pryor.
After returning home for a few days in an attempt to convince his wife to let him live there again, Lawson was unable to reach his brother, and found that he had killed himself in their shared condo.
[3] This suicide occurred three days before the start of a trial in which Kenneth Lawson would defend a teen from West End who had killed a pregnant woman and her unborn child in a car accident.
He additionally states that he recognized that he was addicted to opioids and cocaine as well as to alcohol, but was unable to stop on his own, and ended up stealing money from clients and lying to judges and his family as a result.
[6] Former clients subsequently filed motions and complaints because of Lawson's behavior while using drugs, at which point he says that he learned that he did not remember representing some of them; multiple cases were overturned as a result.
[6] The ruling described a "pervasive pattern of professional misconduct", but did not prevent a future return to legal practice, mentioning that Lawson was making efforts to address his chemical dependence.
[6] In September of the same year, Lawson was indicted on in federal court in Ohio for felony charges of conspiracy to obtain controlled substances, specifically prescription drugs such as Percodan and OxyContin.
[5] While Lawson was waiting for sentencing in Hawaii, the director of the lawyer assistance program of the Ohio State Bar Association introduced him to Randall Roth, a professor at the William S. Richardson School of Law.
He also began co-teaching Roth's professional responsibility course, and as a result, he was invited by School of Law Dean Avi Soifer to teach on his own as an adjunct professor.
[8] Lawson told Honolulu Civil Beat that the law, which may have caused him to lose his job, was intended to target him as a result of his public commentary on high-profile cases.