Laura W. Brill

As the November elections approached, Brill was amping up her effort to register voters. She launched the nonprofit, nonpartisan The Civics Center in 2018 to educate lawyers, young people, their parents and school officials about voter registration and pre-registration laws and encourage students to participate in the electoral process.

The Kendall Brill & Kelly founding partner said she was devoting substantial pro bono time to the campaign, even as she continues her litigation work. “This is our first presidential election since we started. We’ve trained hundreds of students across the country how to organize, even in a pandemic. We do Zoom training, showing how young people can create a public narrative about what they care about and what their values are. Instagram accounts and texting turn out to be their favorite vehicles of expression.”

Covid-19’s arrival was a setback. “The pandemic has made voter registration a challenge for young people,” Brill said. “Some states’ online systems require a state ID card or drivers license, and it’s hard for that to work well.” Studying the issues produced sobering results. In April, when people were realizing the scope of the coronavirus’ effect and not leaving home, there were declines in new voter registrations of between 50 percent and 80 percent in states from Wisconsin to Florida to North Carolina.

“Then the racial justice protests arrived and sparked a lot more interest in voting, so the numbers have improved. But we began with a huge setback,” Brill said. “A lot of the work we’re doing should be getting help from the schools, but with the pandemic that isn’t happening. So we are trying to go directly to kids, and they are definitely interested.”

Brill, who clerked for the late Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said she had a chance to tell Ginsburg about The Civics Center. “She was very encouraging,” Brill said. She recalled how the justice would use scissors to carefully carve from her clerks’ work words and phrases she liked, then tape them on the yellow legal pad she was filling with her draft opinion. “A true cut-and-paste job,” Brill said. She was so attentive to language.”

In a local election case, Brill successfully represented Los Angeles County in a challenge designed to remove from the November ballot a measure titled “Re-Imagine L.A. County,” that would dedicate funds to social services and racial justice through housing, mental health program diversions, employment opportunities and social services. Opposing county law enforcement and firefighter unions sued. Coalition of County Unions v. Logan, 20STCP02478 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Aug, 6, 2020).

The court denied the unions’ challenge. “We won,” Brill said. “The people can have their say.”

— John Roemer