The legal team that stepped in weeks before Kevin Cooper's scheduled execution and won him a reprieve is made up of an unlikely group:

Condemned murderer Kevin Cooper might be dead today if it weren't for an unorthodox dream team of lawyers -- a commercial litigator, a former White House special counsel and a corporate trial lawyer -- who stepped in just weeks before his scheduled execution and won him a rare stay.

"Maybe that's our strength as a team," said attorney Gregory Evans, whose usual clients are Fortune 100 CEOs. "Maybe because we're not criminal lawyers day to day, when we took a look at this case we could see very quickly that Mr. Cooper did not receive a fair trial and might be an innocent man."

Evans, along with former White House special counsel Lanny Davis and litigator David Alexander, took over Cooper's defense in December after their San Francisco-based firm Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe -- one of the nation's top corporate legal law firms -- agreed to provide the legal services pro bono.

The ABA's Death Penalty Representation Project is always looking for litigators in big firms to pitch in and represent those on death row. So many death row inmates have no counsel for their final appeals. If you're in a big firm, or know someone who is, think about it. The rewards are tremendous. You may save a life.