Honors and Awards:

• Northwestern University School of Law and the Student Funded Public Interest Fellowship Program selected Mr. Bien as one of three attorneys "for their outstanding contributions to public sevice and the legal community.", Public Service Award, Northwestern University School of Law, 2010
• The American Association for Justice (formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, ATLA) presented the Leonard E. Weinglass in Defense of Civil Liberties Award at its Convention in New York City on July 11, 2011 to Mr. Bien, and his co-counsel, Donald Specter, for their work on the California Prison Overcrowding Case, Brown v. Plata.  "For more than two decades, Mike Bien and Don Specter have been tireless advocates for those victimized by life-threatening civil rights violations, thus defending the rights of all Americans," said AAJ President C. Gibson Vance., Leonard E. Weinglass in Defense of Civil Liberties Award, Amereican Association for Justice, 2011

Verdicts and Settlements:

• On Monday morning, May 23, 2011, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a historic 5-4 opinion in Brown v. Plata, affirming in its entirety the January 2010 decision of a special three-judge court.  The three-judge court ruled that California’s state prison system must bring its extreme overcrowding under control in order to allow medical and mental health staff the ability to provide minimally humane care to prisoners. Opinion and analysis RBG, led by Michael Bien, represents the class of all California state prisoners with severe mental illness in the Coleman v. Brown litigation, which was combined with another civil rights case, Plata v. Brown, for trial of the overcrowding issues.  RBG, with Paul Clement of Bancroft LLC, and Ashley Parrish of King & Spalding, briefed the case at the Supreme Court on behalf of the Coleman class.  The Prison Law Office briefed the case for the Plata class. Public safety issues have been at the forefront of the litigation both during the 2008-2009 trial and at the Supreme Court.  Law enforcement officials from many states joined with the prisoner plaintiffs in urging the Supreme Court to affirm the three-judge panel’s findings that extreme prison overcrowding itself threatens public safety, and prevents California from adopting proven alternatives to prison overcrowding that have been shown to improve public safety. The Supreme Court’s opinion in Brown v. Plata received front page media coverage and wide editorial page support in major publications around the nation.  Links to selected articles and editorials are provided below.  The Associated Press story quoted RBG’s Michael Bien: “’They’ve made a lot of plans already,’ said Michael Bien, one of the attorneys who sought the ruling on behalf of mentally and physically ill inmates who suffered in severely crowded conditions. ‘We’re sure it can be done safely and appropriately. What’s more, it will save a lot of money.’”, 2011