Cedar Rapids Civil Rights Attorney Stands by Justice for All

David O’Brien is seen in local and national news as he advocates for important issues in civil rights cases.

Cedar Rapids lawyer David O’Brien focuses on Civil Rights cases, those very different from Criminal Law Cases. Not always having the end goal in mind of a Civil Rights Lawyer, O’Brien always liked being able to hold someone accountable for their wrongdoings.

“When government agencies commit a wrongful act, and when they are held accountable for that wrongful act, they are a lot less likely to do it again”, O’Brien says in a mock press conference. “When they get away with wrongful conduct, they are a lot more likely to repeat the conduct. My job is to hold people accountable when they mess up which has evolved into these civil rights cases.”

O’Brien has been a part of many large cases. Some being the shooting of Autumn Steele, Marquis Jones, and the death of Drew Edwards by police officers. It was with these cases that O’Brien found himself in trouble when he signed an agreement to not release a bodycam video to the public.

After signing the form, O’Brien had vowed to never do that again, as he realized it held vital information that the public needed. He has made it a point to simply do his job for justice for anyone involved. O’Brien even notes that he no problem with law enforcement.

“People ask me, ‘Well you must hate the law enforcement but it’s just the opposite...Most of the time our police officers are acting appropriately and reasonably and not violating people’s civil rights.” O’Brien states.

From these cases and they want to do better for everyone involved, giving justice to who deserves it, O’Brien has begun to shift the way open records work within the court of law and what is released to the public.

Because O’Brien is a Civil Rights Lawyer, many times he is working with motorcycle accidents, car accidents, malpractice work, workers compensation, and most recently, wrongful lawsuits. This is how he became so entwined with Body Camera footage of police officers.

O’Brien says, “90% of our police officers are out there every day doing very difficult work, very dangerous work, and doing so in a way that doesn’t violate someone’s civil rights and for them, that body camera video is great because if they are accused of wrongdoing all they have today is ‘hey O’Brien, watch the video.’”

The Dickinson County News released an article looking specifically into how body cameras can be revealing. This article speaks on the idea of how body cameras came to be a tool that is required by all police officers to wear.

In this article, O’Brien is interviewed because of his close ties to the subject with Autumn Steele and the ongoing wrongful lawsuit of Marquis Jones in 2017. The body cameras can host for negativity such as the graphic images resulted from the video but those are largely outweighed by positives brought with body cameras.

O’Brien is constantly reminding the public of the positives involved and how the body cameras are “immediate facts” that can be used in the court of law.

The wrongful death of George Floyd is a case that also caught O’Brien’s attention. After learning of the critical details of the case and knowing how closely the case relates to his cases here in Iowa, O’Brien offers three suggestive reforms, “create citizen review boards to evaluate claims against law enforcement, preserve all documents and evidence for the review board to consider, and toss out ‘qualified immunity,’ which allows law enforcement to avoid civil liability for wrongful acts.”

KCRG also interviewed O’Brien as the George Floyd case became a national problem due to his knowledge and his want to change the policies surrounding some of the issues within civil rights cases.

O’Brien dedicates an immense amount of time to finding justice for his clients. He puts in anywhere from 500-800 hours researching and tearing apart each case to make sure he has all the knowledge needed to correctly represent his client.

After learning about how much work is put into each case, O’Brien is unable to solicit cases. He explained that this is the reason for advertisements for lawyers like himself. If a Civil Rights lawyer is seeking out cases and people who are found to be injured, he, amongst others who do so, lose their law license.

Plaintiff and Civil Rights Lawyers are paid on a contingency basis. Lezlie Luneckas-Broomhall, O’Brien’s Public Relations Representative explains, “There is no risk to his clients because they don’t put any money upfront at all, he assumes all the risk and his firm does. In essence, at times he is working for free and working pro-bono.” O’Brien explains it in more simple terms, “I get paid if I win, if I lose, I get nothing, I’m like a professional golfer.”

In today’s recent news, O’Brien can easily be targeted for the work he does surrounding the police officers and he can be labeled due to how controversial the topics are. After speaking with him, it’s very evident that he is passionate about the work he puts out to the public, how he represents himself and how he represents his clients.

From local news to national issues and interviews, O’Brien stays within his civil rights means and does what is best for his clients and the government. He saw something within a case that sparked his interest, and he knew needed to be changed which has led him to advocate for open record cases.

He recognized something wrong and horrible and changed it for the better because he could. O’Brien noted early on in the mock press conference that anyone can change something if they want to. “If you think the government is horrible when you look in the mirror tomorrow morning, you’re looking at the government. Go do something about it...make your voice heard, it’s a democracy.”

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