Fifteen years ago, when Chicago attorney Thomas Brejcha started the Thomas More Society, it was an attempt to handle an ongoing case that essentially pitted abortion clinics against the pro-life movement. Now the Chicago-based public action law firm is handling issues that its attorneys never saw coming, from attempts to redefine marriage to infringements on religious freedom. “We started with one case, but it was a huge case,” Brejcha said. As the case wound on, Brejcha found that it was taking up more of his time, to the point where the managing partner of his firm told him in 1997 to “quit the case or quit the firm.” He quit the firm and began organizing the Thomas More Society, which soon was receiving requests for help from all over the country.The society was created after Brejcha had become a lead attorney in a class action lawsuit filed in 1986 by the National Organization for Women against Joe Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League, a case that went to the Supreme Court three times before ultimately being decided in Scheidler’s favor in 2003, although NOW still has not paid the courtordered costs. While the firm has few staff members, it works with several special counsels and has links to other attorneys it can call on for help around the country. “Although we’re a small outfit, we have a larger outfit behind us,” Brejcha said. Among those the society lists as special counsels are Paul Linton, a constitutional scholar and general counsel for Americans United for Life. Linton recently worked with the society in support of Illinois’ parental notification law, now being enforced for the first time since it passed in 1995. Brejcha, president and chief counsel, and Peter Breen, vice president and senior counsel, have become litigators in a field they never expected to enter. Breen was an intellectual property attorney who left private practice in 2004 to work in public service, helping political campaigns and establishing crisis pregnancy centers. He got involved with the society as a volunteer in late 2007, when he became active in efforts to stop a Planned Parenthood clinic from moving into Aurora, Ill. The case list from the past two years includes work on permits and security problems on behalf of the National Organization for Marriage as it organized the first national March for Marriage in Washington, D.C., representing the Catholic dioceses of Illinois in their efforts to continue to conduct foster family and adoption services, defending 40 Days for Life coordinators in several states and filing one state and four federal court lawsuits against the Department of Health and Human Services mandate, winning injunctions against the mandate for two Illinois companies, Triune Health Group and Ozinga Brothers. Most recently, evidence the society uncovered that the IRS was targeting pro-life groups for special scrutiny has been presented to Congress, Breen said. The cases involve pro-life organizations whose applications for non-profit status have not been approved. “We have some clients whose applications have been languishing for over a year,” Breen said. He and Brejcha urge that potential clients contact them on the front end — before filing an application for tax-free status — rather than after the fact. “Peter and I are litigators,” Brejcha said, “but people come to us with corporate problems, so we find people to help.” “That’s one of the unique points of this practice,” Breen said. “We respond to the needs of the community. We started with pro-life issues, and of course we are still active in that area. But now there is pro-family, marriage, religious freedom. … There is plenty to do. We are facing issues we never would have imagined 20 years ago. Who was St. Thomas More? St. Thomas More (martyr and patron of lawyers) was born in London in 1478. He studied law at Oxford and upon leaving the university he embarked on a legal career that took him to Parliament. In 1505, he married Jane Colt, who bore him four children. When she died at a young age, he married a widow, Alice Middleton. A wit and a reformer, he attracted the attention of Henry VIII, who appointed him to a succession of high posts and missions, and finally made him lord chancellor in 1529. However, he resigned in 1532 when Henry persisted in holding his own opinions regarding marriage and the supremacy of the pope as he sought a divorce from Queen Catherine of Aragon. The rest of his life was spent writing mostly in defense of the church. In 1534, with his close friend, St. John Fisher, he refused to render allegiance to the king as head of the Church of England and was confined to the Tower of London. Fifteen months later, and nine days after Fisher’s execution, he was tried and convicted of treason. He told the crowd of spectators at his execution that he was dying as “the king’s good servant — but God’s first.” He was beheaded on July 6, 1535. His feast day is June 22 Source: www.catholic.org