Thomas More Society Pro-Life Law Center

Tom Brejcha brings over 35 years of legal experience to his work as president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society, and has been fighting court battles for pro-lifers for over 21 years.

Tom grew up in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood, graduating from Mt. Carmel H.S. and then from the University of Notre Dame, where he drafted the school's first honor code and won a President's Medallion from Fr. Hesburgh. He was a Root-Tilden Scholar and Executive Board Editor of the Law Review at New York University Law School. Serving as an Army Captain in Vietnam from 1969-70, Tom won a Bronze Star and Army Commendation Medal. After studying on the G.I. Bill at the Sorbonne in Paris, Tom joined a Chicago law firm led by Barnabas F. Sears, who was then Special Prosecutor investigating police shootings of Black Panther leaders. Tom went on to become a successful business litigator in antitrust, securities, and labor cases—including two cases that reached the Supreme Court.

Since 1986 Tom has served as lead defense counsel for Joseph Scheidler and three other defendants in the landmark federal “RICO” lawsuit, N.O.W. v. Scheidler. This national class action suit was filed by the National Organization for Women (“N.O.W.”) and the nation's many abortion providers, who tried to apply federal antitrust, racketeering (“RICO”), and extortion laws against peaceable, nonviolent pro-life activism. The case grew into a sprawling, epic-scale marathon that went before the U.S. Supreme Court three times. The high Court ruled 8–1 for the pro-lifers in 2003, then had to hear the case a third time, finally rejecting all claims 8–0, in February 2006.

Under Tom's leadership, Thomas More Society has been involved in many other pivotal pro-life cases, representing the Catholic Conference and other groups in prompting the Illinois Supreme Court to revive the parental notice law, defending an ACLU appeal of the use of the wrongful death law to redress the loss of frozen embryos by an in vitro lab, appealing a $20,000 fine against a “conscientious objector” pharmacist in Wisconsin, winning the right to show The Nativity Story and erect an Easter cross on Daley Plaza, and both suing for and defending pro-lifers in Rockford, Davenport, Bridgeview, Mundelein, Granite City, South Bend, Miami, Birmingham, Syracuse, Los Angeles, Columbus, Twin Cities, Sioux Falls, Detroit, and elsewhere, as well as filing amicus briefs defending marriage for the national office of the Knights of Columbus in Iowa, Connecticut and California. During 2006–07, the Society has scored major wins in First Amendment cases before the Minnesota Supreme Court (7–0) and in federal district court in Chicago for “choose life” specialty license plates in Illinois. The Society is engaged in four lawsuits opposing Planned Parenthood's new facility in Aurora, Illinois.

Denise Mackura
Executive Director and Legal Counsel

Denise Mackura has a long history of service to the pro-life community. She served as both the Director and General Counsel for the well-respected Ohio Right to Life and the Life Legal Defense Fund, and her work includes spearheading a strategy that led to the closing of nine abortion facilities in Ohio and brought about a 12% decline in the number of abortions in the state.

Mackura began serving in the new position of Executive Director at Thomas More Society Jan. 1, 2008. The new position allows the Thomas More Society to expand its services to the pro-life community.

Mackura served on the boards of the Chicago Volunteer Legal Services, the National Lawyers Association, St. Joseph School in Chicago and as a member of the Illinois State Bar Association's Individual Rights & Civil Liberties Section Counsel. In addition to serving as legal counsel to the Ohio House Reference Committee, her professional experience includes teaching government, political science and other courses at several colleges, practicing at a private law firm, directing government relations programs for non-profit associations, and establishing a free legal clinic on the near West side of Chicago. Mackura served for three years as senior legislative counsel for Americans United for Life, a non-profit pro-life public interest law firm and educational organization based in Chicago. She is currently the Chair of the Life Issues Section of the National Lawyers Association.

Mackura has had commentary published in several major newspapers, and her picture has appeared in Newsweek as a member of the Planned Parenthood v. Casey legal team. She has also appeared on Good Morning America and many local TV and radio programs in Ohio.

She has been involved in the pro-life movement since 1971. She received her juris doctor degree in 1977 from Cleveland State-Cleveland Marshall College of Law and is licensed to practice law in Ohio and Illinois.

Peter Breen
Legal Counsel

Peter Breen brings over ten years of experience in the private, political, and non-profit sectors to the Thomas More Society. After earning his bachelors in Electrical Engineering from Vanderbilt University in three years, he attended the University of Notre Dame Law School on scholarship. While an undergraduate, he served as State Chairman of the College Republicans of Tennessee and was a nationally-ranked debater. In law school, Peter led the Notre Dame Knights of Columbus, and he remains active with the council today as President of its Board of Trustees. Peter also serves as a founding Director of the recently-formed Students for Life of Illinois, a statewide network of collegiate pro-life groups.

After graduation from Notre Dame, Peter worked in Chicago as an intellectual property lawyer. He moved from private practice to serve on the field staff of the Republican National Committee, followed by an appointment to the staff of the 55th Presidential Inaugural Committee in Washington, DC. Most recently, Peter founded and directed two crisis pregnancy centers in the Western suburbs of Chicago, along with organizing and directing a network of churches across Northern Illinois to support pregnant women in need.

At the invitation of Tom Brejcha, Peter joined the Thomas More Society in 2008. He focuses his practice on litigation to preserve and protect the First Amendment rights of pregnancy center staff and persons praying and counseling at abortion facilities, along with educating policymakers on life-related legislative issues.

Special Counsel

Paul Benjamin Linton

Paul Linton, the Thomas More Society's 2007 Chancellor's Award recipient, is a constitutional scholar retained as special counsel for the Society for numerous important projects. Graduating in history (B.A., honors, 1974) and law (J.D.) from Loyola University, Chicago, Paul was a prosecutor and appellate law clerk before joining Americans United for Life, serving as its general counsel. He has drafted numerous amicus curiae briefs for the Thomas More Society, including briefs on the partial-birth abortion appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, protecting the Texas fetal homicide law, and defending traditional marriage in several states on behalf of the national office of the Knights of Columbus. Among other projects, Paul is currently writing a comprehensive analysis of each state constitution as relating to abortion and state law interpreting these provisions, in preparation for the state legal battles which will ensue once Roe is overturned. Paul has published a host of law review articles regarding abortion and is sought-after as a trusted and exceptionally learned counselor by legislators, attorneys general and litigants with constitutional or abortion-related issues at stake.

Alan E. Untereiner

Retained as special counsel for the Thomas More Society, Alan is a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm, Robbins, Russell, Englert, Orseck & Untereiner. Alan received his A.B. degree in Social Studies, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Harvard College in 1984, and his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was Notes Editor of the Yale Law Journal. Alan's insight inspired the Supreme Court to grant our petitions for discretionary review in the second and third N.O.W. v. Scheidler appeals. He led the crafting of two Supreme Court briefs and argued Scheidler III before the Court. He is undefeated (3–0) as a Supreme Court advocate. He has authored scores of petitions and briefs in the high Court for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other prestigious business clients.

Roy T. Englert, Jr.

Also retained as special counsel for the Thomas More Society, Roy too is a partner in Robbins, Russell. He received an A.B. in mathematics from Princeton in 3 years, and a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School (1981), serving as Executive Editor of the Harvard Law Review. Roy worked in the Office of the U.S. Solicitor General from 1986–89. He has argued 15 cases in the Supreme Court and won all but two (one loss, one split decision). He argued and won Scheidler II by an 8–1 margin (Feb 2003).

Jason R. Craddock

After earning a history degree at the University of Virginia and his law degree at the University of Iowa, Jason R. Craddock has been practicing law for ten years, most of which have been devoted to litigating pro-life, pro-Christian and pro-family values cases. In 2001, he began representing pro-life activists in numerous Constitutional and tort cases, at both the trial and appellate levels. Since 2006, Jason has served as co-counsel on many cases for the Thomas More Society, ranging from cases involving the abortion facility in Granite City, Illinois, to the current battle against the new Planned Parenthood “Mega Mill” in Aurora. He has served on the boards of several pro-life organizations, including Springfield Right to Life and a Virginia shelter for women and girls experiencing crisis pregnancies. He currently sits on the board of directors for PASS pregnancy centers in Chicago's south suburbs. Jason has a solo law practice in Chicago 's south suburbs, where he lives with his wife Joy, and their four children.