Attorney of the Year Nominee: Sean J. Young
“I've enjoyed working with government officials of all parties. I don't want to work with just one party,” Sean Young said. “I really believe our issues are nonpartisan.”
June 19, 2019 at 02:00 PM
4 minute read
Sean J. Young, 39, is one of the key lawyers behind the headlines of the frenzy of election litigation in Georgia during the past year.
When Young came to Atlanta in 2017 as legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, he was uniquely prepared for what lay ahead. Following his graduation from Yale Law School, he worked two stints with big firms in New York: first with Hughes Hubbard & Reed, then with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. He left each one for clerkships with federal judges—first in the Southern District of New York, then with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
During his time at Skadden, he did pro bono work that ultimately called him to practice public interest law. So, when he finished paying off his student loan debt, he volunteered full-time for the ACLU before going off to Chicago for his Seventh Circuit clerkship. After his yearlong term in Chicago, he returned to New York to work for the ACLU.
He spent the next 3½ years working with the New York-based ACLU Voting Rights Project, litigating cases around the country. He challenged Wisconsin's voter identification requirement, winning a ruling from the Seventh Circuit allowing an important exception for voters who have difficulty acquiring an ID. He fought Ohio's early voting cutbacks, leading the state to extend hours in all counties instead of just urban ones. The Sixth Circuit adopted the legal standard he proposed, and the Fourth and Fifth Circuits adopted it in reliance on the Sixth Circuit's decision.
Then he came to Georgia just in time for the historically contentious 2018 election season in which a white male Republican sitting secretary of state, Brian Kemp, presided over his own election as governor, beating an African American Democratic woman, Stacey Abrams.
Young filed lawsuits and demand letters that reversed the closing of polling places in predominantly African American communities in the South Georgia counties of Randolph and Irwin and the state's most urban county, Fulton.
Young's team secured an injunction to prevent the secretary of state from rejecting absentee ballots with mismatched signatures—meaning they were signed with different initials or versions of the same name. The secretary of state asked the Eleventh Circuit to stay that injunction. The court declined. The ruling came a week before the election.
Sophia Lakin, staff attorney with the ACLU's Voting Rights Project in New York, called the Eleventh Circuit ruling “a huge victory, especially with the midterms just days away.”
Andrea Young, executive director of the ACLU of Georgia, called Young “hands down the best voting rights lawyer in Georgia.” She estimated his work kept 150,000 people from being taken off the active voter rolls. But she also praised him as a champion of the First Amendment.
Through Young's efforts, protesters won the right to go inside the Georgia Capitol rather than being relegated to Liberty Plaza across the street, and they were permitted to carry signs with them—and wear messages on shirts and buttons. The result showed in local and national reports when Georgia passed its version of the “heartbeat bill” banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. The Capitol was filled with peaceful protesters bearing both anti-abortion and abortion-rights messages.
“I take our nonpartisanship status very seriously,” Young said. With First Amendment as with voting rights issues, he's working with everyone in mind.
“I don't care what political party I support,” he said. “Let them all vote.”
He's most proud of instances in which he's been able to move opposing parties to common ground—sometimes without a lawsuit but with a demand letter or just a conversation.
“I've enjoyed working with government officials of all parties. I don't want to work with just one party,” Young said. “I really believe our issues are nonpartisan.”
Earlier this year, Young went to a public meeting in a town south of Atlanta to speak against a proposed ordinance that would have allowed the city to sue citizens for defamation if they criticized their government officials. The mayor introduced him to the crowd, which booed “mightily” at the mention of the ACLU.
“But as soon as I explained the ordinance was a violation of the First Amendment, the crowd cheered,” Young said. “People were coming to me afterward saying, 'This is the first time in my life I ever agreed with the ACLU.'”
His answer: “I'm saying I think we agree on more than you might realize.”
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