The Texas Supreme Court will not revisit its April decision that reversed disciplinary sanctions against Dallas trial lawyer Bill Brewer for allegedly attempting to taint a jury pool.
Without issuing an opinion, seven of the nine justices on Friday rejected pleas from multiple prominent legal organizations in Texas to reconsider the court’s decision on April 24 that there “is no evidence” that the controversial attorney acted in bad faith or tried to improperly tamper with the jury process.
Justice Jeffrey Boyd dissented and Justice Jane Bland recused herself because her former law firm, Vinson & Elkins, represents Brewer in the matter.
The Supreme Court’s decision effectively ends the nine-year dispute against Brewer, who is widely known for his aggressive tactics in representing the National Rifle Association.
A state trial judge in Lubbock ruled in 2016 that Brewer, who was defending a corporate client in a multimillion-dollar damage dispute, conducted a phone survey targeting thousands of individuals possibly in hopes of tainting the jury pool in his client’s favor. The personal injury case settled before trial.
District Judge Ruben Reyes sanctioned Brewer, fined him $177,000 and ordered him to attend 10 additional hours of continuing legal education on ethics. The Seventh District Court of Appeals in Amarillo upheld the sanctions against Brewer.
Brewer then appealed to the Texas Supreme Court, which handed him a complete victory in April.
“Brewer did not disobey any court order, knowingly or otherwise,” Justice Eva Guzman wrote in the majority opinion. “The trial court did not find that Brewer violated any disciplinary rule, nor is there evidence Brewer knowingly violated any disciplinary rule.”
In his dissent, Justice Boyd took issue with the majority’s wording that there was “no evidence” in the case against Brewer. He pointed out that “the trial court specifically found, and the court of appeals agreed, that some of the survey questions, which the attorney personally reviewed and approved, were designed to influence or alter the opinion or attitude of the person being polled.”
The Texas Association of Defense Counsel, the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA), the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Texas Chapter of ABOTA asked the justices in May to reconsider its opinion because, they argued, it wrongfully handcuffs trial judges who try to police lawyer misconduct in cases before them.
“This opinion appears to set a new and disturbing standard of trial practice where zealous representation seems to require trial lawyers to engage in push polling using ‘genuine inaccuracies’ – especially in smaller counties – to taint the venire,” according to the amicus brief filed by Dallas lawyer Brian Lauten and Austin lawyer David Chamberlain.
“Given that the sanctity of a fair and impartial jury system is at stake for future generations of lawyers and their clients in our state, Amici beg this court’s indulgence to reconsider its majority opinion, grant rehearing or affirm the court of appeals,” the brief states.
The sanctions case was not Brewer’s only legal battle in Texas. Mike Gruber, a partner at Dorsey in Dallas, has asked a federal judge to toss Brewer from representing the NRA in a high-profile lawsuit against its former marketing agency, Ackerman McQueen.
The NRA sued Ackerman last summer accusing the Oklahoma-based firm of wrongfully continuing to promote its connection to the gun group even though the relationship had ended months earlier. The NRA also accuses Ackerman of fraudulent billing practices.
Ackerman countersued, claiming that Brewer and NRA leader Wayne LaPierre are attempting to “destroy AMc’s business in a desperate attempt to deflect attention from the NRA’s gross financial mismanagement.”
Gruber, who represents Ackerman McQueen, described Brewer in court documents filed in April as a “tortfeasor engaging in wrongful conduct as a primary actor in the underlying dispute, including spearheading the termination of the services agreement between the parties.”
“In addition to leaking confidential information and defaming AMc, Brewer has engaged in his same media strategy, including leaking court filings before opposing counsel is even aware of them,” the Ackerman McQueen motion states.
“Brewer was not responding to negative publicity – he created it, knowing it would materially prejudice this case,” Gruber wrote. “This dispute was not even in the public sphere until he put it there. Brewer himself admits that he uses trial publicity to create a climate that produces a favorable outcome for the NRA without setting foot in a courtroom, without presenting a shred of evidence.”
In response, Brewer has asked the same judge to remove the Dorsey firm from the litigation because the firm received and benefited from privileged NRA documents.
“Instead of alerting the NRA that this obviously privileged document was in the possession of AMc, Dorsey secretly retained and used the document in an effort to gain an advantage in this litigation,” Michael Collins, a partner at Brewer and Associates, wrote in the motion. “As the court knows, attorneys who are exposed to an adversary’s privileged information – even unwittingly – should be disqualified if their exposure confers an unfair advantage.”