Our Focus
Constitutional Litigation
When a public entity acts, someone can challenge that action in court. A policy, an ordinance, an arrest, a program: any of it can become a constitutional case, and the outcome reaches well beyond the parties named in the suit. It shapes what the government is permitted to do.
These cases carry a weight private disputes rarely do. When a government defends itself in court, it is often adverse to the very people it exists to serve, and it still has to serve them when the case is over. We defend our clients' authority firmly, at every level of the state and federal courts, but always with the understanding that the goal is a community governed well, not an opponent defeated. This is demanding, specialized work, and it rarely arrives at a convenient time. We take it on alongside your in-house team, carrying the litigation your staff cannot absorb without stopping everything else, so the people you serve never feel the strain behind the scenes.
What We Handle
- —Civil rights and Section 1983 defense
- —Constitutional tort claims and immunity defense, including sovereign, governmental, and qualified immunity
- —Equal protection and constitutional challenges to public programs and ordinances
- —Separation-of-powers and intergovernmental constitutional disputes
- —Appellate and amicus advocacy, through the United States Supreme Court
Representative Experience
- —Co-authored an amicus brief before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of eleven of the nation's leading state and local government organizations, supporting review of a challenge to reduced federal subsidies for infrastructure financing. (IMLA Amicus Service Award.)
- —Served as lead trial counsel for a large Texas municipality in a suit challenging the constitutionality of its minority- and women-owned business enterprise program.
- —Represented a county, sheriff, and criminal judges in class-action litigation over constitutional bail-setting practices, obtaining reversal and rendition of judgment from an en banc federal court of appeals.
- —Defended a special utility district in litigation challenging the constitutionality of its tax assessments.
- —Represented a flood control district in litigation against a city involving separation-of-powers and constitutional questions.
- —Obtained dismissal with prejudice of Section 1983 claims against a county, district attorney, and sheriff arising from an underlying state criminal prosecution.
- —Defended individual sheriff's deputies against Section 1983 deliberate-indifference and excessive-force claims, obtaining dismissal.
- —In a novel four-day virtual evidentiary hearing, defeated a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction sought under Section 1983 and habeas by a class of jail inmates.
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