When Bill Lerach, Dickie Scruggs and Mel Weiss, once among the US’s most feted class action lawyers, check into prison, each will be handed a uniform, photographed, fingerprinted and asked to disrobe for a mandatory cavity search. Whatever personal property they have will be taken from them and inventoried. It will either be held until their release or shipped back home. Inmates’ families often report being startled when civilian clothing lands unannounced on their doorstep a few weeks after their loved one was incarcerated. 
Lerach, Scruggs and Weiss will be shown to their living quarters, most likely a bunk bed in a barracks-style dormitory typical of minimum-security camp facilities. The population is usually a mix of drug offenders, white-collar criminals and longer-term detainees approaching the end of their sentences. Fights are few; misbehaviour can mean transfer to a higher-security facility with bars, barbed wire and watchtowers.
