San Francisco Lawyer Hired to Defend American Taliban

The parents of John Walker Lindh, the Marin County man captured with other Taliban fighters in Afghanistan after a prison uprising, have hired James J. Brosnahan, a highly regarded San Francisco trial lawyer, to represent their son.

“We have asked our government for safe passage for John’s parents and me to visit with John as soon as possible,” Brosnahan said Tuesday. “We also asked that no charges be filed against John until we have had an opportunity to speak with the United States government.”

Brosnahan, 67, is an active Democrat who contributed to the campaigns of former President Clinton and other candidates.

He has handled many complex cases, ranging from patent battles to murders. In 1989, he successfully defended Steven E. Psinakis, an activist accused of trying to destabilize Ferdinand E. Marcos’ regime in the Philippines, on charges of interstate transportation of explosives.

He graduated from Boston College in 1956 and Harvard Law School in 1959. He became an assistant U.S. attorney in Phoenix and later in San Francisco before going into private practice. He was named Trial Lawyer of the Year by the American Board of Trial Advocates in October.

Brosnahan, a longtime Berkeley resident who is married to a state court judge, is well known as an advocate of pro bono legal work for the poor.

Keith C. Wetmore, chairman of the Morrison & Foerster law firm, sent an e-mail to colleagues Tuesday acknowledging that the firm’s new client may generate unfavorable attention.

“Although we know that this representation will be controversial . . . it is in the highest tradition of the legal profession in general, and this firm in particular, to take on difficult and unpopular cases,” he wrote.