Law 360 Interviews Will Brewer on Impacts of ABA Opinion

June 20, 2023 -- Law360 quoted Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors Senior Associate Will Brewer in an article about recent American Bar Association guidance that outlines the role of non-attorneys in client intake.

The ethics opinion states that in regards to client intake, paralegals can collect basic information, handle conflict checks, identify if the matter is in an attorney’s specialty area, answer questions about fees and representation, and collect a client’s signature. Brewer said that he hopes the opinion encourages firms to keep lawyers involved in the client onboarding process.

"Our philosophy has always been to have our lawyers in the pivot — directing retention efforts, client activities and the pursuit of every positive outcome," Brewer said.

Brewer also commented, “Everything is custom-designed, depending on the needs of the client.” He added, "at our firm, attorneys are ultimately responsible. They provide oversight and direction — managing the process from the beginning. We view that commitment as an investment in our professionalism and client service.”

The Daily Wire Reports on Legal Challenge to ATF "Pistol Brace Rule"

June 7, 2023 – The Daily Wire reports that Brewer client the National Rifle Association of America ("NRA") filed a motion to intervene in a legal challenge to the pistol brace rule promulgated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (“ATF”).

The NRA seeks to intervene in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, to obtain injunctive relief stopping the ATF from enforcing its rule – which reverses its long-standing position that pistol braces do not transform pistols into rifles subject to onerous registration and taxation requirements under the National Firearms Act.

As the Daily Wire reports, the NRA eventually hopes to get a permanent injunction against the rule. The organization previously backed a lawsuit in North Dakota, filed in February, challenging the ATF’s pistol brace rule.

“The NRA has consistently opposed this arbitrary attack on law-abiding gun owners on multiple fronts,” said NRA Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre. “The NRA is a leader in the largest and most aggressive legal challenge to this action, and now aims to intervene in the Texas lawsuit. We are pursuing relief to protect our members – and bring a halt to this attack on their freedom.”

Read more.

Law360: 18 States Want High Court To Take NRA Blacklisting Suit

April 6, 2023 — Law360 reports that Montana and 17 other states are "lining up behind the National Rifle Association at the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to take up the gun group's appeal arguing that a probe into NRA-affiliated insurers and statements from a former New York official about the reputational harm of associating with the group violated its constitutional rights."

The report states that the attorneys general filed an amicus brief on April 4, which asks the court to correct a Second Circuit decision they say "departed from [the Supreme Court's] clear instruction and gave state officials license to target and crackdown on their political opponents' protected speech."

The NRA, which is represented by Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors, filed suit in 2018 against former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) and then-DFS Superintendent Maria Vullo. The NRA contends the parties took aim at the NRA and conspired to use DFS's regulatory power to financially blacklist the NRA – coercing banks and insurers to cut ties with the Association, in order to suppress its pro-Second Amendment speech.

The NRA's First Amendment claims withstood multiple motions to dismiss. But in 2022, after Vullo appealed the trial court's ruling on qualified immunity, the Second Circuit struck down the NRA's claims.

As Law360 reports, in its amicus brief, the states said, "The Second Circuit's decision gives government officials license to financially cripple their political opponents, or otherwise stifle their protected speech — whether those rivals advocate for school choice, abortion rights, religious liberty, environmental protections, or any other politically salient issue."

The NRA is represented by William A. Brewer III, Sarah B. Rogers and Noah Peters of Brewer Attorneys & Counselors and Eugene Volokh.

Read the full report here. 

Read the amicus brief here.

Texas Tech University and Two Professors Face Lawsuit Claiming Years of Harassment, Misappropriation of Intellectual Property

March 23, 2023 -- A Texas Tech University (TTU) graduate has filed suit against two of her former professors and the University, claiming she was subjected to years of sexual harassment and degradation, and then denied lucrative patent royalties to which she was entitled. In the complaint, filed by Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors, Dr. Cara Wessels Wells lays bare the inner workings of a hierarchal system where TTU professors Dr. Samuel Prien and Dr. Lindsay Penrose allegedly take credit for the work of students, subject them to harassment and humiliation, and abscond with royalty payments that belong to younger generations.

The complaint, filed March 22, 2023, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Lubbock Division, states that the professors engaged in a campaign against Dr. Wells that involved “taking credit for her work, interfering with her job prospects, and pursuing financial opportunities to which they were not entitled.” She seeks damages and injunctive relief.

The complaint states, “When Dr. Wells reported their [the professors] behavior to TTU, the University failed to investigate her accusations, offer her protection from Dr. Prien, or honor its commitment with respect to her hard-earned patents.” In November 2022, Dr. Wells filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) a charge of sex discrimination against the University and Drs. Prien and Penrose. In December, she received a Notice of Right to Sue. Among the claims in the lawsuit are Hostile Work Environment and Retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Trade Secret Misappropriation.

“Our client claims she was subjected to years of abuse at Texas Tech – and continues to suffer the loss of financial opportunity,” said William A. Brewer III, partner at Brewer and counsel to Dr. Wells. “The University not only failed to take proper action to protect one of its students, but it actively worked to diminish her academic and professional success.”

Read more.

Front Page News: New York Law Journal Reports on NRA Appeal

March 17, 2023 – The New York Law Journal reports that Brewer client the National Rifle Association of America (NRA) has appealed  the New York Supreme Court's June 2022 order that dismissed the NRA's First Amendment and Equal Protection Clause counterclaims – without discovery – against New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The front-page article, “NRA Claims NY Seeks to ‘Crush’ Gun Rights Group in Battle with AG’s Office,” chronicles the NRA’s 58-page appellate brief, including the NRA’s claim that the lower court decision dismissing the counterclaims “practically draws a roadmap for how officials can abuse state power to destroy the ability for non-profits to advocate for positions disfavored by the government.”

According to the article, “Under the lower court’s decision, so long as the targeted entity has committed any technical infraction whatsoever, it would have no redress for the blatant violation of its First Amendment rights,” the brief from Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors partner William A. Brewer III states

See the article here.

FOX News Reports on NRA Appeal

March 15, 2023 – FOX News reported today on Brewer client, the National Rifle Association of America (NRA), and its appeal of a June 2022 legal decision dismissing the Association’s First Amendment and Equal Protection Clause counterclaims against New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The article, “NRA digs in for legal fight against woke prosecutor over alleged ‘roadmap’ of abuse,” observes that the NYAG filed a dissolution lawsuit against the NRA in August 2020, following her campaign declarations in 2018 that she would investigate the NRA if she was elected. She had described the NRA as a “criminal enterprise” and “terrorist organization.” The NYAG assumed public office and, exactly as she promised her supporters, launched a campaign against the NRA in April 2019, and, approximately a year later, filed a well-publicized lawsuit against the NRA – billed by her as the suit to dissolve the NRA. The NRA filed counterclaims in July 2021, and supplemented its filing in April 2022.

The NRA alleged that James’s campaign to shut down the NRA was motivated by a desire to silence its pro-Second Amendment advocacy. On June 10, 2022, the New York Supreme Court dismissed the counterclaims without allowing discovery. Citing cases arising in the criminal context, the Court contended that the NRA was required to show that the NYAG had no probable cause to investigate it to state a claim under the First Amendment.

In its appeal, filed in the Appellate Division, First Department, the NRA states that the "lower court’s opinion practically draws a roadmap for how officials can abuse state power to destroy the ability for non-profits to advocate for positions disfavored by the government. An official can run for office with the stated aim of taking adverse action to a silence a disfavored speaker."

Brewer partner William A. Brewer III tells FOX, “The NRA believes the motivation for her [the NYAG]…campaign against the Association is clear: she desired to silence the organization and its Second Amendment advocacy.”

Click here to read the article.

New York Law Journal Reports on NRA Cert Petition to SCOTUS

February 8, 2023 — The New York Law Journal reports that Brewer client the National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider its suit against former New York Department of Financial Services Superintendent Maria Vullo, "whom the gun-rights advocacy group accused of threatening insurers because they did business with the NRA."

According to the NRA, Vullo and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo engineered a 2018 “blacklisting campaign” against the NRA. The Association filed a lawsuit in May 2018, alleging the campaign was retaliation for the NRA’s viewpoint of speech. The State of New York filed a Motion to Dismiss, and, on November 6, 2018, U.S. District Judge Thomas J. McAvoy issued a highly-anticipated decision, which upheld the NRA’s First Amendment freedom-of-speech claims — the crux of its complaint. That decision was overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on September 22, 2022.

The New York Law Journal notes that the petition for a writ of certiorari was signed by NRA's counsel, William Brewer III, and First Amendment scholar and law professor Eugene Volokh. Together, they argue that the Second Circuit’s opinion “gives state officials free rein to financially blacklist their political opponents—from gun-rights groups, to abortion-rights groups, to environmentalist groups, and beyond.”

“It also permits selective investigations and penalties targeting business arrangements with disfavored speakers, even where the regulator premises its hostility explicitly on an entity’s political speech and treats leniently, or exempts, identical transactions with customers who lack controversial views,” they wrote.

Brewer told the Journal that reversal of the Second Circuit’s ruling is “important not only to the NRA but all advocacy groups that rely upon the protections of the First Amendment.”

NRA Files Cert Petition with U.S. Supreme Court; Seeks Review of Case Against Former New York Governmental Official Tied to “Blacklisting Campaign”

February 8, 2023 – Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors client, the National Rifle Association of America (NRA), filed a petition on February 7, 2023, for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking review of a controversial judgment issued by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in NRA v. Maria T. Vullo. The matter in question is one of the nation’s most high-profile First Amendment cases. First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh joins as counsel on the brief.

As the former Superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS), Vullo, at the behest of former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, allegedly wielded DFS's regulatory power to financially blacklist the NRA – coercing banks and insurers to cut ties with the Association, in order to suppress its Second Amendment speech. The lawsuit's allegations are explosive and include backroom threats by Vullo against regulated firms, accompanied by offers of leniency on unrelated infractions if regulated entities agreed to blacklist the NRA.  

The NRA's First Amendment claims withstood multiple motions to dismiss during the course of 2018 – 2020. But in 2022, after Vullo appealed the trial court's ruling on qualified immunity, the Second Circuit struck down the NRA's claims – ruling, among other things, that in an era of “enhanced corporate social responsibility,” it was reasonable for New York's financial regulator to warn banks against servicing gun groups.  

“The NRA is pursuing judicial review of a record that is equally disturbing and unconstitutional: New York state officials weaponizing the powers of their office against a political adversary,” says William A. Brewer III, counsel to the NRA. “This case is important not only to the NRA but all advocacy groups that rely upon the protections of the First Amendment.”

Along with Volokh, Brewer is joined on the brief by firm partner Sarah B. Rogers and counsel Noah B. Peters.

Read the press release.

Read the petition.