Davida P. Brook

Brook focuses on entertainment and media, intellectual property, election law and employment cases.

In February 2021 she filed a proposed class action complaint against the website PornHub’s parent company MindGeek, alleging violations of federal sex trafficking and child pornography laws by knowingly posting and profiting from thousands of pornographic videos featuring persons under age 18. Doe v. MindGeek USA Inc., 8:2021-cv-00338 (C.D. Cal., filed Feb. 19, 2021).

“I’m a First Amendment proponent, but as it becomes ever easier to say anything to millions of people, including producing online child porn, I’m glad to be co-lead on this suit,” Brook said.

Following the November 2020 elections, Brook successfully defended Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers in litigation, led by the pro-Donald Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, intended to prevent the counting of votes for U.S. president. Following Brook’s dismissal motions, both cases were dismissed.

Brook and her team also moved to dismiss a third case, this one filed by Trump in federal court in Wisconsin against the state’s elections commission and Evers. It alleged irregularities in the way absentee ballots were administered. The litigation went to a one-day bench trial. Trump v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, 2:20-cv-01785 (E.D. Wis., filed Dec. 1, 2020).

“Of all the election suits in all the land, there were very few where evidence was presented,” Brook said. “I took the lead on developing a joint fact stipulation with the other side.” Possibly complicating matters, the case was heard by a Trump appointee, U.S. District Judge Brett H. Ludwig of Milwaukee, Wis., who had been confirmed by the U.S. Senate just weeks before the election.

Ludwig—in an opinion that italicized the word extraordinary to describe the case—dismissed the complaint with prejudice. “[T]he record shows Wisconsin’s Presidential Electors are being determined in the very manner directed by the Legislature,” he wrote.

“I attended the hearing by Zoom from my house in L.A.,” Brook said. “I was scared for my small son’s future. Would he live in a world where you couldn’t count on every vote being counted? That placed an additional layer of meaning on the case.”

— John Roemer