NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, – Herzfeld, Suetholz, Gastel, Leniski and Wall PLLC (“HSGLaW”) is proud to announce that it has expanded its civil rights and complex litigation practice with the additions of attorneys Stella Yarbrough and Bruce S. Kramer. Ms. Yarbrough previously worked as the Legal Director for the ACLU-TN, where she recently managed the legal team in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case challenging Tennessee’s ban on transgender care for youth (L.W. v. Skrmetti). Mr. Kramer brings with him over fifty years of experience, including litigating some of the highest-profile civil rights cases in Tennessee history and serving on the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee (“ACLU-TN”) Board of Directors for multiple decades.
Ms. Yarbrough and Mr. Kramer join former ACLU-TN lawyers Tricia Herzfeld and Jeff Preptit at HSGLaW. “Our attorneys have spent their careers protecting democracy, defending the Constitution, and representing people who have been harmed. I am thrilled to have Stella and Bruce join our team,” says Tricia Herzfeld, founding member of HSGLaW.
Before working for the ACLU-TN, Ms. Yarbrough worked as a staff attorney in the Office of Civil Rights at the Tennessee Department of Education and as a public defender in Nashville. In 2014, she graduated from the Vanderbilt University Law School and received a Masters in Theological Studies from Vanderbilt University. Among many impactful cases, in Polidor v. Sexton she protected the First Amendment rights of voters by obtaining an injunction against an unconstitutional ban on handheld political signs in the Tennessee House of Representatives, and in Tennessee Equality Project v. City of Murfreesboro she successfully struck down an anti-LGBTQ ordinance targeting pride events and drag performances.
Mr. Kramer, who joins the firm as Of Counsel, graduated from George Washington University’s National Law Center in 1969, has served as a fellow of the Memphis Bar Foundation, received the Frank Carrington Champion of Civil Justice Award, and the Advocate of Human Rights Award from the Tennessee Human Rights Commission. Among many notable cases, he represented Sidney Shlenker against the city of Memphis over management of The Pyramid, represented actor Harry Reems against the United States in the “Deep Throat” cases, and obtained a 1998 consent decree against the City of Memphis (which he successfully defended in 2018 after trial) for spying on protestors and others for exercising their First Amendment rights.
