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Writer's pictureDaija Triplett

The Prison to Law Pipeline: from behind bars to the bar exam

Updated: Nov 12


A woman in a t-shirt smiles into the camera. The background behind her is blurry.
Maureen Onyelobi is the first incarcerated student ever to attend a law school approved by the American Bar Association. (Photo credit: Emily Baxter, We Are All Criminals)

Mitchell Hamline School of Law is working to help people who are incarcerated get an education in the legal field. The “Prison to Law Pipeline” is a program designed to provide educational opportunities to those who are incarcerated. All tuition and fees are paid for and students participate in Mitchell Hamline law classes over Zoom.


The pipeline program has admitted 4 students so far. Maureen Onyelobi is the first incarcerated student ever to attend a law school approved by the American Bar Association. Originally from Chicago and born to Nigerian parents, Onyelobi is currently studying for her Juris Doctorate Degree. She says she was eight years into her prison sentence when John Goeppinger, one of the co-founders of The Legal Revolution contacted her.


“And it was crazy because literally a month or two before, I was looking at how I could get into law school. There was literally no higher education when I first got here in 2014. It was just people getting their G.E.D., and if you wanted to get an Associate, Masters, or Bachelor's, you had to pay for it out of your own pocket. He actually got my information because I was involved in MPWW, which is the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, which is a writing class through Hamline University. I was a tutor for them, so the head of the program gave him my name,” Onyelobi explained.  


Although Onyelobi is serving a life sentence, she still wanted to find a way to further her education. She says her late mother pushed her to obtain multiple degrees. 


“School was always important to us, and that was always something that I wanted to pursue, so I got my first bachelor's degree in communications from Northern Illinois University. Then, around the time my mother died in 2009, that's when I said, ‘Okay, you need to go back to school’ because the first time I was partying, my GPA wasn't high enough, and that's how I ended up getting my second bachelor's degree in English literature. It was something that she always wanted us to do. It was me, my older sister, and my younger sister, so she raised us, and she said all of you guys need to go and get your second degrees, so it was never a thing for me not to, you know, keep going back to school. The second time I graduated, I got a 3.75 GPA,” Onyelobi recalled.


A man with gray hair sits in a chair in front of a window. A younger woman in jeans and a black t-shirt stands next to him. Her t-shirt reads "The Legal Revolution."
Mitchell Hamline School of Law Professor Brad Colbert and Maya Johnson, Director of Operations for All Square and The Legal Revolution.

The Prison to Law Pipeline Program is a collaboration between Mitchell Hamline Law School and All Square, a nonprofit created to provide opportunities to fight against mass incarceration through education, power, and wealth. Director of Operations Maya Johnson says All Square began by granting employment opportunities for people who have a record. 


"All Square is the main entity; the organization started in 2018 and operates a gourmet grilled cheese restaurant in South Minneapolis. We have a fellowship program where we employ folks that have criminal records or have a history of incarceration and might struggle to find employment elsewhere because of those records or other barriers that they are experiencing, and so that's how All Square started," said Johnson.


Since its creation, Johnson says All Square has expanded to create The Legal Revolution.

“The Legal Revolution is legal focused programming and support. We have a law firm team that is a part of The Legal Revolution side and does a lot of community education and advocacy. The prison-to-law pipeline is also housed under that legal revolution sign. That's the program that I came in to work on originally at All Square; those two all kind of operate together and support each other in one way or another,” said Johnson.


“One thing that All Square has done with The Legal Revolution is brought the lived experiences of people who have been incarcerated and brought them into the conversation about what type of legal services to provide and what type of advocacy” said Brad Colbert, Professor at Mitchell Hamline and Director of Legal Assistance for Minnesota Prisoners. Colbert has been supporting and representing people who are incarcerated for 25 years.


"The goal of the program was to bring them into the classroom, literally. They are in the classroom over Zoom and have been participating, and that's been an amazing piece of it," said Colbert.


Jeff Young is studying law while serving out a life sentence at Stillwater Prison. (Photo credit: Emily Baxter, We Are All Criminals)

Jeffery Young is also studying for his Juris Doctorate Degree. Born to a Cape Verdean family in Boston, Young came to Minneapolis at a young age and became engulfed in his community. He graduated from Grambling State University and is passionate about community organizing. 


“My first year, it felt really fast trying to learn the technology using these touchscreen tablets, and you know, in prison, the most they've given us before is a 1980 typewriter for like 300 bucks that we can purchase. They don't allow us laptops or anything like that, so the very first week of school I’m given the tablet, and we didn't really get a chance to dink around with it and learn how to use it, so it's like being in the middle of having to do all this reading, learn all this new language in case law stuff, and try to learn how to operate this tablet that’s transferring our assignments over, and I think that just made it a little introspective that first semester. But now? I was telling someone that I’m a lot more comfortable with the pace of law school. I don't feel as stressed out and overwhelmed,” said Young. 


Jeff is serving a life sentence at the Stillwater Prison; he was introduced to law by researching his own appeals.  


“I’m someone that likes challenges, and I wanted to see if I was law school material; it was something that would be new. I enjoy learning, and I think that my first discovery of learning that I actually like doing anything in law was writing my first brief for my appeal and my case. I really enjoyed that research process and sort of putting together a puzzle of different laws and how I could convince the court to work in my favor.”


Young says he was particularly drawn to a quote he found reading the famous Brown vs Board of Education case, which states “education is the very foundation of good citizenship.” 


“And so I am all for grabbing hold of any education opportunity that would provide me with some type of tool to contribute to society,” Young said. 


Young and Onyelobi are scheduled to complete the Prison to Law Pipeline program in May of 2026 and will be in the first graduating class. Upon completion, Johnson and Colbert will continue to work closely with the Department of Corrections to help their scholars take the bar exam and become licensed. 

 

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