Susan Smith, the woman who drowned her children in 1994; Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber; Jared Loughner, the gunman in the 2011 attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona; and now Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects – Judy Clarke’s represented them all.

But what do we know about the defense lawyer? She’s extremely private.

So what we do know, we’ve gathered through her high-profile cases defending those who risk capital punishment for their crimes. Clarke is fiercely opposed to the death penalty and has saved the lives of some of the most notorious criminals in recent history.

Author and investigative reporter Mark Bowden spent months digging into her background for this Vanity Fair story and now shares his insights on the elusive character that is Judy Clarke.