When William Amor wrote the instructions for his final trust, he wanted to show appreciation for his friends, his family — and the attorney who helped him prove his innocence after 22 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.
But four years after his death, Amor’s generous bequest has brought strife and hardship for longtime wrongful conviction attorney Erica Nichols Cook, who, in January, was fired by Drake University over disputes about how to use Amor’s nearly $3 million gift.
Nichols Cook was the director of the Drake Wrongful Convictions Clinic, where she taught classes and worked with Drake law students, using DNA and other tools to overturn sometimes decades-old convictions. She also heads the Iowa state public defender’s wrongful conviction unit.
The impetus for Nichols Cook’s firing is a dispute over how Amor’s gift should be handled, which led Drake to file a police report and a civil lawsuit, since withdrawn, accusing her of misappropriating some of the money. Her attorney, Matt Sease, said she was caught in the middle of a legal misunderstanding between the school and Amor’s trustee.
Drake could have determined the credibility of the allegations “if they would have actually talked to Erica,” Sease said.
Who was Bill Amor?
It has been eight years since Bill Amor walked free from an Illinois courtroom.
Amor, of Naperville, Illinois, was found guilty of murder and arson in the 1995 death of his mother-in-law on the basis of a coerced investigation and unreliable fire science, and sentenced to 45 years in prison.
In 2017, a judge ordered he receive a new trial, and on Feb. 21, 2018, he was acquitted.
Nichols Cook represented him throughout the six-year process, initially as an attorney with the Illinois Innocence Project and later pro bono.
“My husband used to joke that we had a budget line for Bill because of all the collect calls and the mail and the trips,” Nichols Cook said in an interview. “And I still love arson cases. I learned the science so well. And Bill trusted me, even though I was new to post-conviction work.”
A gift to Drake University from beyond the grave
In 2022, Amor, by then in poor health, met with an attorney to plan his estate. At the time, his assets were negligible, but he knew that could change: He’d sued the city of Naperville for his wrongful conviction and stood to receive millions. In his trust document, he promised several specific bequests, then divvied up the remainder. Most went to family members but 25% was earmarked for the Wrongful Convictions Clinic at Drake Law School, where Nichols Cook was then working.
Amor died in January 2023 but the lawsuit continued. In August 2024, after a trial in which Nichols Cook was a major witness, a jury ruled for Amor’s estate, awarding $22.5 million in damages — $1 million for each of the 22 1/2 years he spent in prison.
Leonard Becker, an attorney for the trust, said about half of that award went to cover debts, taxes and legal fees. But the remainder was still substantial: Drake’s share totaled more than $2.5 million.
Why did Amor designate money for Drake?
That Drake was named in the trust at all was something of an accident. Nichols Cook said Amor initially wanted to leave the money directly to her, but she declined.
“I just didn’t think that he should try to pay me back with a personal gift because I did the work because of the case, not to get paid someday,” she said.
Nichols Cook’s primary employer, the Iowa Office of the State Public Defender, is not allowed to accept donations. So the gift instead was bequeathed to the wrongful conviction clinic, even though Nichols Cook’s work with Amor entirely predated her arrival at Drake.
From the beginning, the trust document left room for interpretation. In particular, while Drake operated the wrongful conviction clinic as a program within its law school, there was no legal entity by that name that could receive a check. (In a statement to the Des Moines Register, Drake argued that the funds were “explicitly designated for the University’s programs.”)
Drake and the trustee, Amor’s friend Jeanne Olson, went back and forth on what to do with the money, eventually reaching a deal under which Drake would accept the money, place $200,000 in an operating account for the clinic and direct the rest to the university’s endowment, with proceeds supporting the clinic.
Nichols Cook said Drake did not include her in its negotiations and she was not aware of the terms of the deal when it was signed in April 2025.
$154,000 check leads to conflict, termination
In December, Nichols Cook said, Olson met with her and gave her a check for more than $154,000.
“The trustee, reading that agreement, interpreted it in a way that the trust would then issue that money directly to Erica as the director of the clinic,” Becker said.
Nichols Cook said the trustee told her the check was part of the deal she’d negotiated with the school. She said she held onto the check and contacted Drake for guidance, requesting a copy of the agreement. She says she received no response. Drake, in its statement, says Nichols Cook never informed it she’d received the check.
In January, amid unrelated Illinois litigation between the trust and Amor’s sister, the trustee filed an accounting showing the $154,000 distributed to Nichols Cook. According to Drake, that’s the first it learned about it.
Drake has not specifically told Nichols Cook why she was fired. An email she received from Drake Law Dean Roscoe Jones Jr. informing her of her termination only says “given the recent events.” But the university subsequently filed claims in Illinois against both the trustee and Nichols Cook, accusing the trustee of fiduciary breach and Nichols Cook of conversion, or civil theft.
Emails show that because the trust dedicated the funds specifically to the Drake “Wrongful Convictions Clinic at Drake Law School,” Olson and the trust advised Nichols Cook to set up a new nonprofit in that name to receive the money ― a step Drake said raised concerns.
“On December 26, 2025, four days after the check was received by Ms. Nichols Cook, she filed Articles of Incorporation for an Iowa-based nonprofit corporation called ‘Wrongful Convictions Clinic.’ This nonprofit is not affiliated with Drake. According to records filed with the Iowa Secretary of State, Ms. Nichols Cook is the President of this ‘Wrongful Convictions Clinic,’ as well as the registered agent and incorporator for the entity,” Drake said in its statement. “The University believes logical conclusions can be drawn from these facts.”
The school also noted that it had previously rejected a separate proposal from Nichols Cook to use part of the money to set up an independent nonprofit.
Nichols Cook, for her part, says she never deposited the trustee’s check, never saw the agreement between Drake and the trust despite repeated requests and had several conversations with higher-ups at the school about how to proceed.
Emails provided to the Register by Nichols Cook show her dean tried to schedule a meeting with her on Jan. 22 and 23. She was terminated by email Jan. 23 after responding that she was not available.
Police investigation ends with no charges
Not only did Drake file civil claims against Nichols Cook and the trustee, but it also filed a report with Des Moines police, Nichols Cook said.
After an investigation spanning multiple states, a detective informed Nichols Cook’s attorney that no charges would be filed. On Feb. 19, Drake withdrew its conversion claim against Nichols Cook.
The $154,000 check has been returned to the trustee, who apologized to Nichols Cook in an email.
“There is nothing I have done in my memory that has turned out with such dire consequences for someone I admire greatly and whom I hold in great esteem,” Olson wrote Feb. 6. “… Bill expressed so many times his desire to have the funds put under your control. He loved you and I overstepped what a trustee could legally do through ignorance. You paid the price and I am at fault.”
Fight over money makes ripples beyond law school
The dispute also has affected the state public defender’s office, which had a deal with Drake to rent space for its wrongful convictions staff there, colocated with the clinic. With Nichols Cook now terminated, the state has had to relocate that department, although State Public Defender Jeff Wright told the Register no cases will be affected by the change.
“There shouldn’t be any disruption to any clients,” Wright said.
Nichols Cook’s firing a week into the spring semester has effectively suspended operations at the clinic, forcing students to find new classes at the last minute. In its statement, Drake says it “remains deeply committed to a sustainable path forward for its Wrongful Convictions Clinic.”
Under the April 2025 memorandum of understanding, if Drake should determine the clinic is “no longer viable,” the university must use the rest of the money “to advance wrongful conviction awareness, education and litigation in the state of Iowa and beyond.”
Becker said the trustee expects the university to fulfil its obligations.
“I believe the trustee is very intent about keeping Drake to its word,” he said. “The firing of Erica Nichols Cook, it diminishes the faith that the trustee has in the university.”
William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com or 715-573-8166.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Drake fires law clinic leader amid fight over benefactor’s $2.5M gift
Reporting by William Morris, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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