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Coroner Investigating Death of Texas Solo, Mother of Saints QB

Posted Aug 11, 2009 8:17 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

An Austin, Texas, solo practitioner with a famous son and a controversial business has died, and the coroner’s office is investigating the cause.

Lawyer Mina Brees, a former president of the Austin Bar Association, died Friday in Grand County, the Austin American-Statesman reports. Her son is New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees.

Last month the Texas Attorney General’s office had subpoenaed records of letters Brees had sent to several Austin and Houston restaurants, the TexParte Blog reports. The letters said the restaurants had lost the rights to their names, but they could buy them back for up to $25,000 each, according to the American-Statesman.

The letters said a company called Chicksports had assumed ownership of the names because the restaurants had failed to reserve or renew them under Texas law. The letters did not mention that Brees was president of Chicksports, according to an Aug. 7 story in the Austin American-Statesman.

The Texas Restaurant Association has said the restaurants did not need to pay the money to keep their names.

Comments

1.

abe
Aug 11, 2009 9:17 AM CST

gee, from all the optimistic comments from lawyers here and other legal websites,  it is not that hard to make money as a solo.

But here was an experienced lawyer, one with contacts and name recognition etc who had to work out of her home and resort to obviously questionable tactics in order to make a living.

If the pro-law school, pro-legal establishment commentors here were correct, then this very experienced atty would not have had to do this.

The fact is that the legal profession is hopelessly overcrowded, and as for most of the optimistic comments here that say that almost any lawyer can make $$, these comments are from lawyers who have some personal stake in the law school industry, e.g., law school administrators, law school professors. etc.

I personally know several experienced lawyers who are POOR.

.

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2.

B. McLeod
Aug 11, 2009 9:57 AM CST

Sure, abe.  We all know some poor lawyers.  But I do not think they would be better if they had not gone to law school.  Some people are (unfortunately) just dull and undistinguished in virtually everything they do.  We should be thankful they did not choose to be poor doctors.

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3.

Debt Ridden
Aug 11, 2009 10:14 AM CST

“But I do not think they would be better if they had not gone to law school.  Some people are (unfortunately) just dull and undistinguished in virtually everything they do.  We should be thankful they did not choose to be poor doctors.”

Think harder…because they would be better off. They wouldn’t be buried in enormous loan debt, they wouldn’t have sacrificed the opportunity cost of three (or more) lost years and they wouldn’t be bearing the scarlet JD on their resume.

Are there some mouthbreathers in law school and the profession? Absolutely…but you cannot explain away the wreckage of the “profession” by chalking it up to the tired “those who don’t succeed just don’t have what it takes” refrain.

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4.

B. McLeod
Aug 11, 2009 10:41 AM CST

Actually, I was thinking of the patients.

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5.

anon solo
Aug 11, 2009 10:52 AM CST

lawyers out there are having to resort to all sorts of things to make a living—I know one lawyer who mows lawns on weekends in order to pay his bills.

The law schools shills have lied about the salaries of law school graduates, and those lies have lured tens of thousands of hopefuls into going into massive debt.

This huge surplus of lawyers makes it impossible for the bottom half to make a living as a lawyer.

Of course those who are making money off of the law school industry are always trying to keep the charade, the ponzi scheme going.

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6.

B. McLeod
Aug 11, 2009 10:59 AM CST

Moral - Don’t be in the bottom half.

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7.

no gambler
Aug 11, 2009 12:19 PM CST

well the roulette wheels in vegas offer almost 50 percent odds, too.

if you want to gamble why not just take out some credit card cash advances and get put the money down on the roulette wheel?

That way if you lose you can discharge the credit card debt via bankruptcy?

Law school is not perceived by the law school hopefuls as a gamble, even though it really is.

And whose fault is that? The fault of the law schools and the legal establishment that covers for the law schools.

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8.

B. McLeod
Aug 11, 2009 12:36 PM CST

Back more toward the actual topic, the fact that Mina Brees was a past president of the Austin Bar Association suggests that she must have been, at one time, a fairly successful practitioner.  The details of the media articles seem to suggest a decline in the quality of her practice (and possibly, desperate action to escape a potential prosecution).  Occurrences of this type are more typically linked to personal issues and personal mental state than to general economic conditions.

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9.

anon solo
Aug 11, 2009 12:57 PM CST

her fast and defensive response to the chronicle regarding her letters to restaurants show that she was not mentally deficient.

Clearly she was forced into this risky gambit by the oversupply of lawyers in texas.

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10.

anon solo
Aug 12, 2009 8:39 AM CST

her lucid email to the media after this broke showed that her mental state was just fine.
The problem is saturated state of the profession.

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11.

B. McLeod
Aug 12, 2009 10:16 AM CST

We shall see.  I will not be surprised if the coroner’s conclusion is suicide.

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