Sarah Gad's life story is one for the case books. A repeat drug offender turned criminal defense attorney, it shows among other things that it's never too late to turn one's life around.

After a car collision in 2012, she was prescribed opioid painkillers on which she developed an addiction. Between 2012 and 2015 she had seven non-violent felony drug convictions. She was jailed in Hennepin County Minnesota, Cook County Illinois, and in Pennsylvania.

After a hellish 27 days in a Chicago jail, where she was beaten, stabbed, raped, and thrown in solitary confinement, her case got the attention of Kathleen Zellner, an attorney who became famous from the Netflix show Making A Murderer, and who had taken an interest in the awful behavior of the Cook County jail system.

Zellner invited Gad to come and assist at her law firm on cases related to Cook County, even while Gad was still struggling with addiction.

"And I found the work to be very rewarding. I had the privilege of being able to be present when a person that I had helped prove they were wrongfully convicted of murder [sic]," said Gad. "I was able to be at the prison and be with him as he took his first steps up to freedom, hugging his family."

This was the case of Mario Casciaro, who was freed from a murder charge after a witness recanted—and who inspired Gad to apply to law school. Winning a settlement from Cook County, she got into the prestigious University of Chicago Law School.

But all her progress could have been turned around because back home in Minnesota's Hennepin County, she was slated to appear before Judge Barnette, who would determine whether or not she would go to prison for repeat drug felonies.

"‘There's a mandatory minimum for repeat drug offenders, and she is a serial recidivist who cannot be rehabilitated,'" Gad recounted someone saying. "But the judge is like, ‘Well, she did say she got into law school, like, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.'

"[I] started law school with an ankle monitor," she added laughing.

After graduating in 2020 and receiving her license to practice in 2022, Gad proceeded to go to work in criminal defense, and in July her client Ben Richardson was cleared of all charges for a murder he didn't commit—while standing before Judge Barnett, the very person who made Gad's work on the case possible.

The two shared a run-in of surprise, and presumably, smiles.

Richardson is just one of 21 cases that Gad has managed, all of which have gone her way. She even launched a political career for Congress in Illinois' 1st District.

It's a lesson in the power of second chances, in the true burden of America's long war against victimless crimes, and the importance of the character of judges in a society.

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