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In 2013, three years before the arrests at Hobgett Elementary, when a bunch of kids were arrested and brought to juvenile detention for not stopping a fight, a guy named West Clark had just graduated law school. West was 25 years old,

smart, ambitious, but he was also just coming out of a pretty wild past. On and off,

since he was a teenager, he'd been addicted to Oxycontin. A hopeless love of this shit is how he puts it.

With that,

came Wes's rap sheet,

a DUI, some drug charges.

So considering this,

he knew the chances of getting a job at a Tony Whitechew law firm

were pretty close to zero.

But he needed a job.

That's when some lawyers he meant

recovery circles gave him a tip. There's always

work in juvenile court. They were like, hey, this is a place you can go and at least start out

and learn the ropes because there was a need for lawyers to do that. Court-appointed juvenile cases

don't pay well. And lawyers have told me that juvenile court

lacks the prestige of adult criminal court. One lawyer harshly described it as the bottom

...