Johnnie Cochran, who died Tuesday at the age of 67, was arguably the most famous defense attorney in the country. The flamboyant master of courtroom drama came to the attention of many Americans with the murder trial of O.J. Simpson, but he had a productive legal career long before that in representing unknown and downtrodden defendants.

Though Mr. Cochran will always be associated with his successful defense of the former NFL star during a trial that polarized the nation along racial lines, it wouldn't be fair to measure his life's work by one case. Prior to turning the 1994 "trial of the century" into a spectator sport, the lawyer who succumbed this week to a brain tumor was once the bane of Los Angeles prosecutors.

As even his critics readily acknowledge, Johnnie Cochran was a smart lawyer who was an aggressive advocate for justice, often in defense of those with little means. His string of victories in police brutality cases, for instance, forced the LAPD to change how it made arrests.

He was a hero to some African Americans long before he got the "Juice" loose on charges that the football Hall of Famer had murdered his wife, Nicole, and her friend Ronald Goldman. Yet the attorney's famous exhortation to the Simpson jury, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit," enraged as many Americans as it entertained. After the acquittal, those who considered him a cynical barrister who merely got guilty people off were either unaware of his track record as a civil rights lawyer or contemptuous of it.

As much as he appreciated the patronage of his celebrity clients, Mr. Cochran considered his effort on behalf of former Black Panther Geronimo Pratt his crowning achievement. Mr. Pratt walked out of prison in 1997, 27 years after he was convicted for a murder he didn't commit, largely because of his counsel's hard work.

Johnnie Cochran said he liked to get paid well, but that the money he made from people like O.J. allowed him to work for those he called "the No J's." His death robs the defenseless of one tireless advocate.