Lawyer Mark Pettingill has expressed his ?devastation? at the death of good friend, high-profile American defence attorney Johnnie Cochran, calling him a ?kind, caring and remarkable man?.

Mr. Cochran, who gained celebrity status as the principle lawyer behind the infamous acquittal of OJ Simpson in the California murder trial of 1995, succumbed to a brain tumour at a Los Angeles hospital on Tuesday night.

The 68-year old was very familiar with Bermuda, having come here on vacation numerous times, most notably when he came specially to attend the Bermuda Film Festival in 2003.

An emotional Mr. Pettingill, who had been friends with the charismatic Mr. Cochran for a number of years, said the legal profession had lost one of its most gifted members.

?He was a great man,? he reflected. ?I got to know him initially a few years ago when I was over in the States and he is been down to Bermuda on a few occasions recently where I had the enormous pleasure to work with him on a couple of things.

?It was a tremendous, not to mention humbling experience for me to collaborate with a man who had achieved so much.?

Despite his frequent involvement in sensational celebrity trials and the accompanying media frenzy (past clients included Michael Jackson and rappers Snoop Doggy Dogg and Sean ?Puffy? Combs) Mr. Cochran was an outspoken advocate of black civil rights and maintained, even at the zenith of his fame, that his proudest legal work was in defending a string of poor black clients.

Among a long list of successes, in 1997 he secured the release ? after 27 years of fighting ? of the wrongfully convicted former LA leader of the militant Black Panther movement Elmer (Geronimo) Pratt. Cochran had worked on the murder case from its inception in 1969 for free.

And in 1990, Mr. Cochran negotiated the largest financial settlement in the history of the Los Angeles school district for 18 black girls sexually molested by a teacher.

?The clients I?ve cared about the most are the No Js ? the ones who nobody has heard about,? he said in 1997.

And Mr. Pettingill concurred, insisting that beneath all the controversy which surrounded OJ Simpson?s acquittal, Mr. Cochran was more concerned with the welfare of the have-nots.

?Of course he will always be remembered for his work on the Simpson case ? but he was about more than that,? he said. ?He was a passionate defender of the less fortunate and did an enormous amount of work on civil rights and in matters of police brutality. But away from his job, he was simply a lovely guy.?