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Who's Who.1.13 12/21/12 2:40 PM Page 40
PEOPLE IN THE NEWS | By Mark Kernes
Pleading the 1st Free speech defender Steven Swander passes at age 61
“All I can tell you is, there are some nice people in the FALA, but he was the nicest, most upright attorney in the
FALA that I ever had the pleasure to meet,” observed Bradley Shafer, an attorney renowned for representing adult
cabarets and nightclubs. “There’s a lot of cutthroat stuff that some FALA attorneys do—not all, but you know, he
was the old type of attorney: a gentleman’s gentleman.”
The man that Diane Gracia, his life partner of eight years, described as “a gentle and kind person” seemed to
have been well-liked by everyone who knew him.
“Steve was one of the most gentle souls, especially notable in a litigator,” recalled Jeffrey Douglas, criminal
defense attorney and Board Chair of Free Speech Coalition. “He was self-effacing, never arrogant. His clients always
had an advocate who would do for them what he never did for himself: fight zealously, even aggressively.”
“When I think of Steve Swander, I think of a perfect Southern gentlemen who was soft-spoken and knew his
stuff,” added long-time associate H. Louis Sirkin, who worked with Swander on the Reliable Consultants v. Earle
case, which legalized sex toys in the Fifth Circuit. “He reminded me of Will Rogers, and I’m certain that Steve
never met anyone he didn’t like. If he didn’t like you, one would never know.”
Gracia referred to her 6-foot-4 partner as a “gentle giant.”
One of the cases that occupied Swander’s time over the past few years was the Texas “strip club entrance fee” case,
in which Swander not only provided support for the attorneys attacking the fee, but also testified against the origi-
nal bill before the Texas legislature.
Swander had also personally represented several Texas adult nightclubs and strip clubs, including Flashdancer,
Christal’s Romantic Boutique, Peep-N-Tom’s and Hooters, Inc.
The Hooters case—Hooters, Inc. v. City of Texarkana—was particularly interesting, in that it involved the plain-
tiff’s attempt to open an adult nightclub, “The Executive Room,” but on opening night, it found its business
license revoked because the club was within 1,000 feet of a church. Trouble was, this “church” was located inside the
Bowie County Correctional Center, a local prison. According to an obituary posted on the First Amendment
Center blog, Swander successfully argued that the prison chapel didn’t qualify as a “church” under the city’s zoning
law, since families were not allowed to attend services with the inmates—and Texarkana city officials weren’t even
aware that the chapel existed!
“His love for representing adult businesses arose from a passion for free expression—not merely as a constitution-
al precept, but as a requirement for civilization to survive,” Douglas stated.
Swander’s dedication to the First Amendment was all the more admirable because he spent the last year of his life
with nearly debilitating back pain.
“More than a year ago, he was working in an attic and he fell through the ceiling and hurt his back,” Lee
Steven Swander, a tireless defender of free speech rights for
adult movies, strip clubs and adult novelties, died in Fort
Worth, Texas, of mesothelioma, a particularly virulent form of
cancer, at a local hospital on November 24 at the age of 61.
“He saw representing sexually oriented businesses as an
intellectual challenge,” former law partner Dick Price told
Elizabeth Campbell of the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram.
Swander was born in Burbank, California, in 1951, though
he grew up south of that city, in Manhattan Beach, and
obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of
Southern California. He obtained his juris doctor degree from
Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where he later joined the
faculty as head of the university’s debate department.
“What got him out to Texas, he told me once was, he was
into debate in college, and I think he said he got a scholarship
at Baylor or they got him out to Baylor to be a debate coach
or something, but that’s how he became a Texan,” recalled
attorney Reed Lee. “But I think he was always a Southern
California kid at heart.”
He joined the Texas State Bar Association in 1976, began
the private practice of law in Ft. Worth, and over the succeed-
ing years was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme
Court, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and the
Northern District of Texas. In 2011, he was elected president
of the First Amendment Lawyers Association (FALA), of
which he had been a member for many years, and when he
died, he was the organization’s National Chairperson, an hon-
orary title.
explained. “So he’d been in pain a lot. … The first thing when we saw him or got on the phone with him, we’d
always ask, ‘How’s the back going?’ But then, about two or three weeks ago, some of us heard that he had mesothe-
lioma.”
a passion for free expression—not merely as a constitutional
”“His love for representing adult businesses arose from
precept, but as a requirement for civilization to survive”
—Jeffr ey Douglas, FSC
Mesothelioma is most often caused by inhaled asbestos fibers caught in the lungs, and may take as long as 20 to
50 years to develop into its malignant cancerous form. There is no cure for the condition.
Shafer opined that Swander wouldn’t necessarily have had to be around asbestos to contract the illness.
“I used to be an asbestos defense attorney,” Shafer noted, “and just breathing the air outside, because of the old
type of brake linings, can give you mesothelioma, and unlike asbestosis, which requires inhaling asbestos over time,
the general medical research is that one fiber can cause mesothelioma.”
Besides Diane Gracia, Swander is survived by three daughters: Jillian Swander of Fort Worth, Devyn Swander of
Austin and Rowan Swander of Austin.
“Steve was a brilliant lawyer who cared very much for his clients and loved to protect the First Amendment,”
Sirkin summarized. “My deepest feeling is the sorrow I feel for myself and everyone who was blessed to know him.
We all lost a very good friend and this country lost a true freedom fighter.”
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