Linda M. Burrow

In addition to her entertainment work for big-name clients like Fox Searchlight Pictures, Paramount Pictures, and TMZ, Burrow is about to receive her third honor from the ACLU Foundation of Southern California for her work on free speech and civil rights.

"Pro bono work is part of what I think is our obligation as lawyers — to use both our skills and our influence to protect the rights of people who otherwise don't have voices," Burrow said. "The role of the court is to protect the minority from tyranny of the majority, and this is us assisting that."

With ACLU, Burrow won a permanent injunction against Los Angeles County in federal court, preventing an attempt to add a Christian cross to the county seal.

The plaintiffs, an interfaith group of religious leaders, all submitted declarations of what it meant to them to add this symbol to a government seal, Burrow said. "For the Christians, it was really about devaluing this sacred symbol, and some Christian leaders said they did not want to be party to the symbol being used in a way that excludes non-Christians," she explained.

The previous seal had a cross removed in 2004 and replaced by a depiction of the San Gabriel Mission, to acknowledge the missions' role in regional history. But in 2014, the Board of Supervisors passed a motion to add a cross to the depiction of the Mission, replacing its depiction of side that did not have one. Davies et al. v. Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors et al., 2:14-cv-00907-CAS-FFM (C.D. Cal. April 6, 2016).

Burrow said the motion was alternately explained as necessary to make the depiction either more architecturally, culturally or artistically accurate. "However, as we showed, the Hollywood Bowl depiction is none of those things," she said. "It was certainly representational, but it's not accurate."

Burrow's team agreed with the ACLU that the move appeared to be a religious act, and filed suit "with amazing help and support from religious leaders, Christian and non-Christian," she said.

Separation of church and state was really the bottom line, Burrow said, and the injunction was granted on both state and federal constitutional grounds — on the federal establishment clause and on California's "no aid clause," which prohibits government from in any way offering aid to a particular religion.

"I like that it's always a new challenge," Burrow said of her work. "I mean, litigation only arises when there is a problem, and the best part is when we can figure out how to fix the problem for our client that really solves the issue as efficiently and as fairly as possible."

- L.J. Williamson