Michael W. Bien

SAN FRANCISCO - Twenty-six years ago, Michael W. Bien sued the federal Bureau of Prisons on behalf of women who had been sexually assaulted while in custody at the prison in Dublin, California. He may have to do it again very soon.

His clients then were three women who had been moved from the medium-security women's facility to the high-security segregated housing unit in the adjacent men's prison. "This is not good corrections practice, as might be obvious to anyone," Bien said. "And sure enough ... a corrupt guard opened cell doors and allowed men to access the women's cell."

He and co-counsel sued the prison and officials in 1996, which they settled two years later for $500,000 and some minimal corrective action. Among some other measures, "they agreed to not put women in this men's unit," he said. Lucas v White, 3:96-cv-02905 (N.D. Cal., filed Aug. 13, 1996).

Then last spring came reports of more sexual crimes against women prisoners in Dublin. Since then, at least six prison employees, from a cook to the warden and the chaplain, have been indicted. In response, several groups contacted Bien to help, including the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, for which he reached out to his old clients and prepared them for interviews and possible testimony.

He and his firm are also representing women providing evidence in the current investigations, and he with others may file suit. "It is a difficult situation, but we have the expertise," he said.

Indeed, Rosen Bien has litigation going now over poor jail conditions in Alameda, Monterey, San Diego, Santa Clara and Yuba counties. Bien's current biggest cases are a 1994 class action, now called Armstrong v. Newsom, to protect disabled prisoners' and parolees' rights under the ADA and a 1990 class action, Coleman v. Newsom, seeking better mental health care for California prisoners.

"We spend more time on that case than any other case," he said about Coleman. "But we're going to stick with it and get things fixed eventually."

He and the firm do much more than prison litigation. Bien is very proud that the firm prevented the Trump administration's move to exclude the Chinese social media app WeChat from the U.S. Last summer, the government finally dropped its appeals and agreed to pay fees to Rosen Bien.