Practice area
Brian was a St. Louis City police officer before he was a lawyer. Since law school he has represented police officers, firefighters, EMS personnel and corrections officers across the St. Louis area: in internal investigations, before licensing and pension boards, and in civil court.
Police officers, firefighters, EMS personnel and corrections officers: individually, and as members of their associations or legal plans. All four face many of the same boards and the same clocks. If you are not sure whether your situation fits, ask.
On the police side, Brian is General Counsel to the St. Louis Police Officers Association and approved counsel for the National Fraternal Order of Police. That work began with internal investigations for FOP Lodge 68 shortly after law school, and has grown from there.
An internal affairs interview is not a conversation. What is said there follows the officer into the disciplinary hearing, the appeal, and anything that comes after. We prepare officers for the interview, sit in it with them where the rules allow, and handle the discipline and the appeal that may follow.
A POST complaint is separate again. It goes to the state’s licensing authority and can put the license itself at risk, apart from anything the department decides. It has its own process and its own deadlines.
Before an interview
Know your rights before you sit down, and call before, not after.
Brian is certified by the Force Science Institute as a Force Science Analyst, and has represented hundreds of officers. He has also served as an expert witness in cases involving law enforcement.
In practice that means being present for the interviews, reviewing the incident against the officer’s training and against what is known about perception and reaction under stress, and presenting it to the boards, hearings and courts that decide what happens next.
Officers get sued. We defend them in state and federal court, and have represented officers in the Missouri appellate courts, including arguing on their behalf before the Missouri Supreme Court.
When an officer, firefighter or paramedic is hurt on duty, the injury runs through three systems at once: workers’ compensation, the pension or retirement board, and disability. Each has its own forms and its own clock, and a decision in one can affect the others. Missing one does not pause the rest.
We prepare the filings and appear at the hearings. The workers’ compensation side is described on the workers’ compensation page.
Brian joined the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department in 1994 and patrolled both North and South St. Louis. Among the commendations he received was the Medal of Valor.
He knows how quickly an incident on the street can unravel afterwards, what an officer is looking at across the table in an interview room, and what the job asks of the people who do it. That is why he does this work.
In the news
Selected coverage of cases in which Brian represented St. Louis police officers, from 2018 to 2021. Each story opens our summary, with links to the original reports.
Featured ·
A first grand jury declined to indict the two officers. When a second one did, prosecutors kept its transcript from the defense. A judge found that deliberate and dismissed the case as a sanction. Brian was one of the two defense attorneys.
A judge ruled that a former St. Louis officer acted lawfully and used objectively reasonable force in a 2017 arrest in which a man’s jaw was broken.
A judge ruled that prosecutors had not proved a former officer lacked probable cause to stop and search a man he believed he had seen in a drug deal.
A judge found that a former officer’s use of pepper spray at a September 2017 downtown protest was justified, after threats, attacks on other officers and orders to disperse.
The first of four officers charged over overtime pay was acquitted, after a judge found that forgery had not been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
A judge ruled that prosecutors had not proved a former officer lacked the authority to make an arrest while off duty, and that the force he used at a St. Louis gas station in 2019 was appropriate.
Prosecutors dismissed the overtime pay cases against the three remaining officers after a judge refused them more time to gather records.
Past results afford no guarantee of future results, and every case is different and must be judged on its own merits. The summaries are written by the office from published reports; each article belongs to its publisher, and some require a subscription.
Photographs of St. Louis from Wikimedia Commons; each is credited on its story’s page.
Common questions
For Missouri police officers, state law (section 590.502, RSMo) allows a lawyer or representative to be present, and to confer with you, in questioning you reasonably believe could lead to discipline. For firefighters, EMS and corrections staff it depends on the department’s rules and any collective bargaining agreement. Either way, the preparation before the interview is where most of the value is. Call before you sit down.
A complaint to the state body that licenses peace officers. It is separate from your department’s discipline and can put your license itself at risk, which is why it needs its own response.
Often, depending on the association and the kind of matter. You do not need your association’s authorization before you call. Contact Brian directly, and we can usually tell you quickly whether a matter comes through a plan or on its own.
Usually, and often something else as well: the pension or retirement board, and disability, each on its own schedule. We handle all three together so a decision in one does not undercut another.
Reviews a use-of-force incident against what is known about how people perceive, decide and move under stress — reaction times, attention, memory — so that the incident is judged against what an officer could actually have seen and done, not against the slow-motion replay.
Related areas
A line-of-duty injury is a workers’ compensation claim as well. An injury off duty is handled like any other.
Contact · Kirkwood office
If you have been involved in a critical incident, call before you give any statement. Otherwise, tell us what happened and we tell you where the matter stands.
Call 314.621.0622 Send a message
