Brice Timmons

(901) 529-7996

Brice Timmons focuses primarily on Civil Rights and Disability Law both for individuals and class action lawsuits. Throughout his career, he has fought to uphold the rights guaranteed under the US Constitution, primarily through litigation under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act. His areas of practice focus on the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, especially as they relate to due process, jail and prison conditions and medical care, and police misconduct. He has also been recognized by federal courts as a “specialist” in civil rights and disability law, and has substantial expertise with the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, as well as cases involving gender and LGBTQ+ rights discrimination.

Mr. Timmons left a lucrative, secure, and prestigious partnership in general litigation behind to pursue a practice exclusively focused on the civil rights of vulnerable people. Starting from a humble practice focused on reforming jails and prisons in Tennessee, his practice grew to include cases across the country and of national significance. He has obtained numerous court ordered injunctions striking down laws as unconstitutional and in violation of federal civil rights statues. Today, court victories that Mr. Timmons has procured currently protect the constitutional rights of nearly thirty millions people in the United States. That means that approximately one in every twelve people in the U.S. enjoy the protection of some aspect of their fundamental human rights because of his work.

Education:

Mr. Timmons has a unique understanding of vulnerable populations and works to help ensure protective laws leave no one behind. He has shaped his practice to the command of Isaiah to “Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.” He graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Memphis and earned his Juris Doctor from the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. He held a graduate faculty appointment as an adjunct professor of political science at the University of Memphis for five years teaching courses in civil rights before taking time to focus his practice entirely on civil rights litigation.

Military Service:

Mr. Timmons is a veteran, having served in the Southern European Task Force (SETAF) and 173rd Airborne Brigade of the United States Army. He continues to be involved with issues affecting U.S. military veterans as the Chairman ex officio of the Shelby County Veterans Court Foundation, which helps provide mental health and substance abuse services to veterans caught in the criminal justice system. He has volunteered hundreds of hours of legal services to incarcerated individuals, children with disabilities, survivors of domestic abuse, and others whose voices should be heard.

Legal Background & Experience:

Mr. Timmons has proudly served and been a member of, or is currently a member of:

The Memphis Bar Association
The Tennessee Bar Association
The American Bar Association
Chair of The Shelby County Veterans Court Foundation
The Faculty of the Department of Political Science at the University of Memphis

Mr. Timmons is admitted to practice in all federal and state courts of Tennessee; admitted in the United States Courts for the District of Colorado, the Southern District of Illinois, and the Eastern and Western Districts of Arkansas; admitted in the United States Courts of Appeals for the Sixth, Eighth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits; and admitted to the Supreme Court of the United States.

In addition to the cases listed found at “Notable Cases,” here are just a few of Mr. Timmons’s past successes when representing plaintiff and defendants in civil rights cases:

Friends of Georges, Inc., v. Steven J. Mulroy. In a case of first impression in the nation, Mr. Timmons and Mr. Edgington obtained declaratory relief under the Declaratory Judgment Act when Judge Thomas Parker of Tennessee’s Western District Court declared the Adult Entertainment Act, Tennessee’s drag ban codified at Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 7-51-1401, -1407, and § 39-17-901, unconstitutional and enjoined the government from enforcing the law within Shelby County following a consolidated preliminary injunction hearing and trial on the merits under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(a)(2).

HM Florida-ORL, LLC v. Melanie Griffin. Following their win in Tennessee, a Florida district court granted preliminary injunctive relief against the enforcement of Florida Statute § 827.11, Florida’s drag ban, in our client’s favor. The Court determined that our client was likely to succeed on its First Amendment challenge to the law because the Act was content-based on its face as well as unconstitutionally vague and overbroad.

Turnage et al., v. Oldham et al. In a jail class action suit Mr. Timmons and Mr. Edgington, along with Watson Burns, LLC, obtained a $4,900,000.00 settlement for individuals over detained by the Shelby County, Tennessee Jail as a result of the November 2016 implementation of the Odessey computer system. The suit alleged that individuals arrested between November 1, 2016, and March 21, 2021, were detained for a time longer than the law provided as a result of the implementation of the Odessey computer system.

Autumn Sanders v. Shelby County Schools. Following years of litigation and a week-long jury trial Mr. Timmons and Mr. Edgington obtained a $350,000 jury verdict in their client’s favor for the failure of Shelby County Schools to reasonably accommodate their client as to her read aloud accommodation and to reasonable accommodate their client as to access to elevators while she attended Central High School.