‘Toilet Lawyer’ Has A Career Defending LGBTQ Community

Police sting operations meant to target illegal public sex unfairly discriminated against gay men: that’s what attorney Bruce Nickerson has proved again and again in California court rooms, where he’s built a career defending gay and bisexual men accused of lewd conduct and indecent exposure. That specialty has earned him the nickname, “Toilet lawyer.” Nickerson has argued that police officers engage in discriminatory practices by exclusively using attractive male officers to target men seeking gay sex, often staging the stings in public restrooms. Nickerson encountered resistance from police, who defended the stings. His law license was suspended twice, and he served jail time for helping an accused child molester flee the country. Nickerson said that move was a mistake, which he regrets to this day. “I’ve seen him restore people’s dignity, their very lives to them, that were unjustly taken away because of these kinds of discriminatory actions,” Eric Schweitzer, co-chair of the legislative committee for California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, told the Los Angeles Times.