Baker McKenzie lawyer reunited with have-a-go hero law student who helped him during train station attack

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By Katie King on

John Rowley urges the final year to follow in his footsteps and become a prosecutor

John Rowley and Andrew Miller

A Baker McKenzie lawyer attacked at a Washington train station has been reunited with the law student who stepped in to defend him.

John Rowley, 62, was exiting a train at Gallery Place Metro last week when he said he was approached by a group of teenagers. The assailants punched him, threw him to the ground and pushed him towards the direction of the tracks. Two teenagers have been arrested.

Though he suffered a broken hand and facial bruising during the assault, the former federal prosecutor realised things could have been far worse had an onlooker not jumped in. Rowley knew the have-a-go hero was a George Washington University Law School student, but didn’t catch his name. The white-collar crime specialist urged him to get in touch so he could say thank you.

And now he has. The identity of the man who helped Rowley has been revealed as 23-year-old Andrew Miller. Appearing alongside Rowley in a Fox5 video, the final year student recalled:

They stepped over him, came at me. They threw one punch, which I was able to block kind of instinctively, but it landed a little bit. They swung again the second time. That one hit me. That one hit me down and I think that was the end of it.

When we reported Rowley’s appeal earlier this week, we speculated whether a successful meet-up would lead to a spot of work experience for the good Samaritan law student.

Could this be on the cards? Rowley said:

There is a silver lining here. It’s that I have an opportunity to meet and get to know this young man because he really is a cut above. I haven’t had too much time to work on him yet, but I am a former federal prosecutor and I am trying to nudge him in that direction.

Miller — who suffered a concussion and a bruised face in the attack — seems to share Rowley’s ‘look on the bright side’ approach: “I’m glad that we met,” he said, and added: “This incident kind of resolidifies my desire to make sure that whatever career that I go into, I am actually making a difference.”

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