The Fraternal Order of Police

The inception of Bret Rawson’s representation of police officers was his involvement in the defense of Utah municipalities, especially involving 42 USC 1983 civil rights cases before the Federal District Court for the District of Utah. In that capacity, Mr. Rawson successfully faced the challenge of defending officers accused of a broad range of Fourth and Eighth Amendment violations, including excessive force, cruel and unusual punishment, and unlawful search and seizure. It was during one such trial that Mr. Rawson recognized a certain esprit de corps that exists among the men and women of law enforcement.

Mr. Rawson spent his college years studying management, public relations, and finally law, before eventually graduating from the Nation’s oldest law school, the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. Mr. Rawson possesses graduate-level training (Master’s Degree from BYU) in public relations, an area in which he is published, and a field which led him to the United States Capitol, where he worked in communications for US Senator Robert F. Bennett. Upon graduating from law school, Mr. Rawson immediately began representing police officers, going so far as to enroll in the Utah Peace Officer’s Standards and Training program at the age of thirty-seven while practicing full-time as an attorney. It was here where he inquired during a training session at POST: Who represents the interests of the line officer in Utah? His peers and instructors pointed him to the Nation’s oldest and largest organization charged with the representation of police officers, the Fraternal Order of Police an organization that was started by cops, for cops, in 1915, and which currently represents the interests of approximately 350,000 members nationwide.

The rest, as they say, is history - a bright history that is impacted with every new member that joins this honored and respected Fraternal Order.