In 1960s, a New Jersey prisoner began studying law to fight his own drug conviction. Decades later, he became a New York judge despite criminal record

Walter Strauss was sitting inside Rahway State Prison in New Jersey in the 1960s, serving a lengthy sentence after a drug conviction. His situation looked very different from what it would become years later. Instead of allowing prison to decide the course of his life, Strauss began teaching himself the law, first to challenge his own case and later to help other prisoners with theirs.

His story, documented by The Fortune Society and later court records, eventually took him from a prison cell to law school, the New York bar and, finally, the bench as a Housing Court judge.

He started studying law while in prison

Strauss was convicted in Bergen County in 1966 of selling marijuana to an undercover New Jersey State Police narcotics agent and was sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison. Court records show that he argued he had been entrapped. His conviction was initially upheld, but a federal judge later granted a writ of habeas corpus in 1971 after finding that a key informant had not been made available to testify.


The state did not retry Strauss, and he was released on parole after serving five years.

During his imprisonment, however, Strauss had already started changing the direction of his life. He studied law so he could work on his own appeal and began helping fellow inmates with their legal problems.

He also took criminal justice classes taught by David Rothenberg, who would later become the founder of The Fortune Society. That meeting became an important part of Strauss' life after prison.

From prison education to law school

After his release, Rothenberg met Strauss at the prison gates and helped him get a job at Fortune as a paralegal. Strauss continued his education, eventually earning a master's degree in criminal justice from John Jay College and later graduating from Rutgers Law School.

But getting a law degree did not mean his past was simply forgotten. Strauss still had to convince bar officials that he should be allowed to practice law despite his conviction.

“Basically, anybody who was a convicted felon was excluded from becoming an attorney,” he says.

Strauss appeared before ethics and admissions authorities and brought witnesses, including Rothenberg, to support his application. His record of rehabilitation and work after prison eventually helped him gain admission to the New York and New Jersey bars. A later court decision also described his education, employment and rehabilitation in detail.

He eventually became a New York judge

Strauss went on to serve as a New York Housing Court judge, becoming one of the state's first judges who had previously been incarcerated. A City Limits report identified him as a Brooklyn Housing Court judge beginning in 1994.

His journey did not stop after overcoming the New York bar. When he later sought admission to the Florida bar, he faced another set of restrictions connected to his past, but again challenged the barriers and eventually succeeded.

Looking back, Strauss has credited persistence more than anything else for allowing him to keep moving forward.

“I didn't know if I was going to succeed or not, but I was willing to be persistent about it,” he says.

He later summed up the lesson this way: “Persistence is a key factor in everything,” he says. “So whatever it is that you think you might want to do, some people try once and give up. But those who persist will have the best chance of succeeding.”

For Strauss, the journey from prisoner to judge was not a quick turnaround. It took years of education, legal battles and repeated attempts to overcome rules that followed him because of his past. His story has since become one that Fortune uses to encourage formerly incarcerated people to pursue education and careers despite the obstacles in front of them.