In an item in the Movers & Shakers column for October 12, 2011 the San Francisco Chronicle recognized RBG partner Michael Bien and Donald Specter of the Prison Law Office for receiving the 2011 Leonard E. Weinglass in Defense of Civil Liberties Award.  According to the Chronicle, “They were honored for their victory in Brown vs. Plata in the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the ruling of a special three-judge court that California’s state prison system must bring its overcrowding under control in order to allow medical and mental health staff the ability to provide humane care to prisoners.”