G. Flint Taylor

FLINT TAYLOR is a founding partner of the People’s Law Office in Chicago which has been dedicated to litigating police violence, government misconduct, and death penalty cases for 45 years. Among the landmark cases that Taylor has litigated are the Fred Hampton Black Panther case; the Greensboro case against the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis; the Ford Heights Four case in which four wrongfully convicted men received a record $36 million settlement, and a series of cases arising from a pattern and practice of police torture and cover-up by former Chicago police commander Jon Burge, former Mayor Richard M. Daley, and numerous other law enforcement officials. He obtained a multi-million dollar settlement for a seven year old boy who was falsely accused of the murder of an 11 year old girl and has represented, and continues to represent, numerous other wrongfully convicted persons, including police torture victims who have spent decades in prison and on death row. Taylor’s work in fighting against police torture in Chicago over the past three decades has been instrumental in obtaining the conviction and imprisonment of Jon Burge and the precedent setting decision that upheld the inclusion of former Mayor Daley as a defendant.

Taylor also played a major role in the “street files” case that uncovered the unlawful Chicago police practice of systematically violating Brady v. Maryland and has been instrumental in pioneering and litigating pattern and practice claims against municipalities, particularly in the areas of repeater cops, police discipline, and the code of silence.

Taylor successfully argued Cleavinger v. Saxner and Buckley v. Fitzsimmons before the U. S. Supreme Court, and numerous cases before Federal Courts of Appeal and the Illinois Supreme Court.

Taylor is a National Lawyers Guild member, a founding editor of the Police Misconduct and Civil Rights Law Reporter, has extensively written and lectured in the field of civil rights litigation and police torture, and frequently appears on radio and television and at other public forums to discuss these topics.

Over the years, Taylor has received numerous awards and accolades for his work, including from the Cook County Bar Association, First Defense Legal Aid, Rainbow PUSH, the Northwestern Center on Wrongful Convictions, the National Lawyers Guild, Northwestern Public Interest Fellowship Fund, IPIIVO, the Chicago Reader, and Chicago Magazine.

U.S. Supreme Court
Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals
Illinois Supreme Court
Illinois Appellate Court, First District
U.S. District Court, Northern District, Central District, and Southern District of Illinois; Central District of North Carolina; Central District of Arkansas; Eastern District of Wisconsin.

Westboro High School, 1964

Brown University, 1972

Northwestern School of Law, 1972

Legal Eagle Award

The Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization

2014

With Locke Bowman and Alexa Van Brunt, for their many years fighting for fairness in a cause many thought was hopeless; for their success in redressing the rights of a mother and her deceased son, who were long denied justice.

Distinguished Alumnus Award