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Its a growth industry, no doubt about it. Our cup runneth over, Brejcha, 76, says of his practice. He founded the Chicago firm 22 years ago out of his pro bono work for the anti-abortion movement.

The name Thomas More pays homage to the 16th-century martyr at the center of a celebrated church-state dispute. Brejcha (pronounced BRECK-ka) admires the saint for his humor and for what playwright Robert Bolt in an introduction to his Man for All Seasons called Mores adamantine sense of self.

As the modern-day culture wars heated up, the firms donations, from small checks to six-figure gifts, surged, tripling to $6 million between 2012 and 2018. A $137,500 deficit in 2017 turned into a $539,365 surplus. The firm does all its work pro bono.

The firm represents Beloved Church in the northwestern Illinois hamlet of Lena, which continues to hold services in defiance of Gov. J.B. Pritzker's stay-home order and a federal judge's denial of its request for a temporary restraining order. Pastor Stephen Cassell says the Thomas More Society was the one conservative legal group, among more than a dozen he contacted, that followed up.

"If it wasn't for them we wouldn't be in this fight," Cassell says.

The Thomas More Society has about a dozen lawyers total, on staff here and in Omaha, Neb., and another 15 to 20 on contract across the country paid by the hour. It hires other lawyers on a case-by-case basis.

Brejcha says his main challenge is finding enough lawyers to handle the firms workload. In 2018 his firm paid nearly $1 million to attorneys. (Brejcha got nearly $200,000, according to regulatory filings.)

His career was propelled by a racketeering lawsuit filed in 1986 by the National Organization for Women alleging a conspiracy to deny women the right to an abortion. Brejcha represented defendant Joseph Scheidler and his Pro-Life Action League; they ultimately prevailed, in 2014, on a third appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The publicity attracted other clients under religious-freedom banners. Issues ran the gamut, from same-sex marriage, insurance mandates, embryonic stem cell research, nativity scenes and transgender bathroom disputes, to abortion clinic protests and nuns complaining about a suburban strip club neighbor.

As public opinion on same-sex marriage flipped over the last decade, Brejcha hasnt. I dont think anybodys going to rewrite the Bible, he says.

"He is without question dogmatic, absolutely rigid, stultified, which he probably sees as a virtue," says Chicagoan Fay Clayton, NOW's lead counsel, along with the Southern Poverty Law Center, in the Scheidler case. She credits him with getting skillful lawyers to volunteer for the case.Ed Yohnka of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois says, They have this very twisted view of the First Amendmentthat religious liberty requires government policies to adhere to their religious beliefs.

The firms highest-profile client in pending criminal and civil cases is probably David Daleiden, an anti-abortion activist who posed as a researcher and secretly filmed Planned Parenthood officials discussing fees for sale of fetal tissue and organs. In one of the civil cases, a federal jury in San Francisco last November awarded $2.2 million to Planned Parenthood, which maintains it may arrange for tissue donations at the request of patients but not sales. The verdict is on appeal.In California Superior Court, Daleiden and another defendant are awaiting trial on nine felony counts alleging eavesdropping and invasion of privacy.

Brejcha says his work isn't one-dimensional, pointing to his defense of antiwar demonstrators and backing from the likes of the brothers Philip and Daniel Berrigan, activist priests who led 60s antiwar protests, and co-counsel assistance from late Attorney General Ramsey Clark. We had support from the left for what Dr. King called peaceable nonviolent direct action.

Periodically imprisoned Chicago activist Kathy Kelly relied on Brejcha two decades ago when charged with violating U.S. sanctions against Iraq, the result of her humanitarian aid missions. Hes always struck me as somebody whos remarkably selfless, she says.

After growing up on the South Side and graduating from the University of Notre Dame, Brejcha attended New York University School of Law, where he was on the law review with Rudy Giuliani (they havent kept in touch). An Army captain in Vietnam, he got a medal for helping plan the 1970 invasion of Cambodia. The operation rekindled campus unrest, triggering student massacres at Kent State and Jackson State universities.

Returning home, Brejcha gravitated to a litigation firm that had a name partner in the news: Barnabus Sears, a special prosecutor in an obstruction-of-justice case against Cook County States Attorney Edward Hanrahan and 13 others for their roles in the 1969 killing of two Black Panthers leaders.

When his work with Scheidler and other pro bono clients ate up too much time for too little income, Brejcha left to start Thomas More. He tapped Scheidlers mailing lists to raise money and Scheidler's wife, Ann, to chair the board.

Brejcha, in a politically ecumenical way, says Thomas More the saint would be appalled if he walked the earth today.

The way the First Amendment has been pushed aside I think it would be shocking to him. Youre allowed to patronize liquor stores, but you cant get into church, he says before broadening his complaint. There used to be a common core consensus thats turned into hard line divisionsthats regrettable . . . very, very sad. I dont know if were going to restore the center. I hope democracy has a future.

As for President Donald Trump, Thats a tough one. I dont think the president is immune from what Im talking about. Brejcha says he's guided by a favorite saying of Sears': "Who you are shouts so loud I can't hear what you're saying."

During the coronavirus crisis, Brejcha is taking long walks with his wife, Deborah, and reading. On his list is Fatal Discord, a history of Western civilizations bedrock culture war, the 16th-century schism between Luther's Reformation and humanism espoused by Erasmus.

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Chicago-based Thomas More Society busy with religion-oriented cases - Crain's Chicago Business