Donald H. Specter, 57

Prisoner civil rights

In August, Specter, director of the 12-attorney Prison Law Office, which advocates for prisoner rights, was part of a team of attorneys that secured a landmark order requiring the state of California to come up with a plan to reduce its prison population by 25 percent within two years. Specter has worked on one of the underlying cases leading up to the order since 2001, winning a ruling that inmate health care was constitutionally inadequate. Then, in a two-month trial last year, he and his co-counsel persuaded a panel of three federal judges that the health care was inadequate because the prisons are overcrowded, with some operating at more than 200 percent capacity. After a preliminary ruling in the prisoners’ favor in February, the judges issued their final order in August. The state has appealed the order to the U.S. Supreme Court.