Meeting attendees file into the room prior to a Keller School Board meeting regarding the possible spit of the school district and the resignation of the Keller ISD Superintendent at the Keller Education Center on Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025.
Chris Torres
ctorres@star-telegram.com
The Texas branch of the NAACP has asked a federal appeals court to consider reversing monetary sanctions levied against attorneys who sued the Keller school board over voter discrimination claims.
Brewer Storefront, the pro bono community advocacy arm of Dallas-based Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, filed the lawsuit against the board of trustees in February 2025. Claudio Vallejo, a Keller parent who is Hispanic, was the plaintiff.
The lawsuit alleged that Keller’s at-large voting system diluted minority votes in school board elections. In January, U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas called those claims “baseless” and “frivolous.” He dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice and ordered attorneys William Brewer — the Brewer firm’s founding partner — and Joshua Harris to pay the Keller board’s legal fees, which amounted to nearly $285,000.
That is now under appeal.
On Wednesday, the Texas NAACP filed a brief with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said sanctions of the kind imposed against the Brewer attorneys could deter future efforts to stop voter discrimination.
“Voting-rights advocacy should be tested on the merits, not punished for its ambition,” the brief read.
The Texas NAACP argued the discrimination claims against the Keller board weren’t frivolous and were brought forth in good faith based on an understanding of the Voting Rights Act. The proposed remedy, a cumulative voting system, is a recognized solution to discrimination concerns stemming from the at-large system, the organization said.
Under Keller’s at-large system, votes are cast district wide for candidates for open school board seats. The argument against at-large voting is that Black, Hispanic and other minority candidates don’t have as good of a chance of winning seats as white candidates in districts such as Keller where the voting base is majority white.
When the lawsuit was filed, as is the case today, all of Keller’s trustees were white.
The Brewer lawsuit offered cumulative voting as an alternative. Under that system, voters have several votes that can be divided among all open seats or consolidated in support of particular candidates.
Prior to filing the Keller lawsuit, the Brewer firm had successfully initiated the move away from at-large voting in the Lewisville, Richardson, Carrollton-Farmers Branch, Irving and Grand Prairie school districts.
In his published opinion, though, O’Connor pointed out that Brewer had never won a voter discrimination lawsuit in which attorneys sought cumulative voting as a remedy to the at-large system.
In the Lewisville case, for example, the school district moved from an at-large system to a single-member district system to address allegations of minority vote dilution.
Under the single-member district system, the school district is divided into smaller voting districts from which candidates are elected to represent their direct constituents.
William Brewer did not immediately respond to questions about the Keller case, nor did attorney Tim Davis, who represented the Keller school board in the lawsuit.
A breakdown of Keller’s legal fees
Brewer’s lawsuit against the board was filed Feb. 14, 2025. O’Connor granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss on Jan. 15, 2026.
On Jan. 29, Davis told the court Keller had incurred $278,867 in legal fees up to that point defending against the lawsuit. Additional fees and expenses brought the final total to $284,559.97.
According to court filings, Davis and others at his firm, Jackson Walker, spent 391 hours on the voting rights case. The defendants’ application to recover attorneys’ fees said Davis’ hourly rate for this case was $450, a 42% discount from his normal hourly rate of $775. Hourly rates for all attorneys working on the case ranged from $395 to $965.
Keller taxpayers have voiced anger over how much money the district paid Davis and Jackson Walker while Davis served as the school board’s counsel. He has since parted ways with Keller, though he continues serving as counsel for the Texas Board of Education. Davis also chairs the Tarrant County Republican Party.
This story was originally published August 7, 2026 at 5:45 AM.
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Matt Adams is a news reporter covering Fort Worth, Tarrant County and surrounding areas. He previously wrote about aviation and travel and enjoys a good weekend road trip. Matt joined the Star-Telegram in January 2025.