The National Rifle Association is demanding that Dallas lawyer William Brewer and his firm, Brewer Attorneys & Counselors, repay $200 million in legal fees plus additional damages, accusing him of legal malpractice so severe it nearly destroyed the organization he represented for more than six years. The gun rights group filed court documents in October 2026 asking a Dallas County district court to compel arbitration of the dispute before Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services.
A Six-Year Relationship Gone Sour
According to The Texas Lawbook, the NRA alleges Brewer's firm committed egregious legal malpractice that caused the organization catastrophic financial and reputational harm, and that Brewer and his team breached their professional and fiduciary duties while representing the Virginia-based group over that span. The NRA first retained Brewer Attorneys & Counselors in March 2018 for an insurance-regulatory inquiry, a relationship that began as the organization was dealing with a challenge by New York state officials to its Carry Guard insurance program, as The Texas Tribune has reported. From there, the NRA says, Brewer's work expanded into nationwide representation over more than six years, including legal actions involving its longtime public relations firm and then-president Lt. Col. Oliver North.
The lawsuit cites five separate matters involving alleged malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty, knowing participation in breach of fiduciary duty, and negligent misrepresentation. The NRA alleges Brewer's legal strategy repeatedly exacerbated the organization's exposure, and that he and his firm knew of executive misconduct that put the NRA in regulatory peril. Perhaps most seriously, the NRA alleges Brewer and his firm concealed and disregarded that misconduct in order to shield former leader Wayne LaPierre. Per The Dallas Morning News, the NRA says it was unable to obtain comment from Brewer or his firm regarding the new allegations.
A Bankruptcy Filing Gone Wrong
Among the matters cited is a secret Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing that Brewer Attorneys & Counselors allegedly engineered, which a federal bankruptcy court later dismissed, finding it was not filed in good faith and calling the circumstances shocking. The NRA says that failed filing cost tens of millions of dollars in attorneys' fees and expenses and caused millions more in reputational and economic damages, while the organization paid Brewer's firm more than $5 million for that work alone.
The NRA also points to its litigation against Ackerman McQueen, its former public relations firm, as a costly misstep. The NRA filed multiple lawsuits against Ackerman McQueen across two jurisdictions in 2019, seeking an estimated $100 million, after terminating its contract with the firm that year. Brewer Attorneys & Counselors billed the NRA nearly $20 million for that litigation, which the NRA says ultimately cost it at least $35 million and yielded nothing recovered. The NRA alleges Brewer advised it to pay Ackerman McQueen about $16 million to settle on the eve of trial in 2019. That dispute eventually reached a confidential settlement in March 2022, shortly before the Ackerman McQueen case was set to go to trial, and a forensic auditor's report filed in New York Attorney General Letitia James's lawsuit against the NRA stated that the NRA ultimately paid Ackerman McQueen $12 million, according to The Trace. Each side in that fight had sought more than $50 million in damages.
Internal Power Struggle Over North
The NRA's suit also revisits Brewer's advice to sue then-president Oliver North amid an internal power struggle in 2019. North later sued the NRA himself, seeking millions of dollars. The organization has now hired Greenberg Traurig partners Michael Gruber and Brian Mason to pursue the claims against Brewer — notably, the same two attorneys who once represented Ackerman McQueen in litigation against the NRA while they were at the firm Dorsey & Whitney.
Fees That Ballooned Over Years
Internal documents previously obtained by ProPublica showed Brewer's firm billed the NRA $24 million over a 13-month period, with charges exceeding $97,000 per day in the first quarter of 2019 alone. At the time, the Brewer law firm and the NRA defended the fees as standard for the scope of work involved. The NRA's overall annual spending on legal, audit and tax expenses climbed from $11.9 million in 2017 to $50 million in 2021, a 320 percent increase, The Trace later reported.
Brewer has weathered legal scrutiny before. In 2020, the Texas Supreme Court overturned sanctions against him in a 7-to-1 decision, according to The Washington Post. Separately, the NRA settled with New York's Department of Financial Services over Carry Guard-related charges, agreeing to pay a $2.5 million fine and refrain from selling insurance in the state for five years, a resolution The Trace reported on in its earlier coverage of the organization's mounting legal costs.
The new case marks one of the most direct reckonings yet between the NRA and the attorney who once stood at the center of its legal strategy during years of internal turmoil, regulatory pressure and infighting among its own leadership.
