Brian East
Senior Attorney
Disability Rights Texas
Brian graduated from the University of Texas School of Law in 1977. He worked at legal aid for two years, and in private practice for 14 years, before joining Disability Rights Texas (formerly known as Advocacy, Inc.), which is a non-profit corporation advocating for the rights of people with disabilities. Brian has handled a number of disability-discrimination and disability-rights cases in state and federal court, and has written and lectured extensively on these issues. Brian is a past Board member of both the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA) and the Texas Employment Lawyers Association (TELA). He served as Chair of NELA’s Disability Rights Group, and has also served on the Legal Advocacy Subcommittee of the American Diabetes Association, as well as on the legal committees of the National Disability Rights Network and of AIDS Services of Austin. He is the co-author and editor of the chapter on “Workers with Disabilities” in the Employee & Union Member Guide to Labor Law (Thomson/Reuters/West). Brian has frequently been named as a Texas “SuperLawyer,” and he received the 2003 Excellence in Public Interest award from the Texas Law Fellowships, the 2008 Martha Arbuckle Meritorious Service Award from the Austin Mayor’s Committee for People with Disabilities, the 2011 J. Chrys Dougherty Legal Services Award from the State Bar of Texas, and the 2015 Lex Frieden Employment Awards Governor’s Trophy from the Governor’s Committee on People with Disabilities. He is a Life Member of the Texas Bar Foundation.