passage: Her career started more than 20 years ago in a garage behind a Catholic Worker soup kitchen on skid row in Los Angeles .
  She lived on a $ 3-a - week stipend that she spent on pantyhose and bus fare .
  Her law practice grew to an organization that brought in millions of dollars of damages through its cases against L.A. slumlords , allowing poor families to set up college funds and buy homes .
  In all those years , she never lost a case .
  When she stepped down , she had time to notice what was happening to the field of poverty law .
  " I realized with a shock that the work had really disintegrated and we had lost a whole generation of public - interest lawyers , " she said .
  " It had gone from being an economic sacrifice as it was in my day to an economic impossibility .
  ... The whole system has essentially collapsed . "
  Mintie also started to ask questions about the medical field .
  Almost every person who walks into a free medical clinic , she said , faces some legal problem such as an eviction or the loss of Social Security benefits .
  And many of her clients had medical problems from living in slum housing such as cockroaches lodged in ear canals and rat bite fever , a nonfatal malady that particularly affects children .
  Mintie noticed that health - care professionals were graduating with staggering debts and also could n't afford to work with the poor .
  Her work was noticed by Oprah Winfrey , who invited her on the TV show March 26 , 2001 .
  Mintie received a $ 100,000 " Use Your Life Award " from Oprah 's Angel Network , a nonprofit organization that awards money to those who help others .
  Mintie said that all of the money has gone to her recipients -- none was spent on overhead .
  She will be out of funds by spring .
  She is trying to get religious organizations to sponsor recipients .
  It is a secular organization , but one that grew out of Mintie 's religious convictions .
query_and_answer: How many cases did she lose ? || Lost five cases
evidences: In all those years , she never lost a case . When she stepped down , she had time to notice what was happening to the field of poverty law .