In re Primus
United States Supreme Court
436 U.S. 412 (1978)
Attorney Edna Smith Primus (Primus), volunteering with the ACLU through the nonprofit South Carolina Council on Human Relations, informed women who had been coerced into sterilization as a Medicaid condition about their legal rights and the possibility of future litigation. After learning the ACLU would represent sterilization victims, Primus wrote to one attendee, Mary Etta Williams, on her law firm's letterhead describing the opportunity for ACLU representation; Williams ultimately declined to sue and showed the letter to the doctor's own attorney. The South Carolina Supreme Court publicly reprimanded Primus for directly soliciting a prospective client, and Primus petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for review.
Whether state regulation violates the First Amendment if (1) it proscribes the direct solicitation of prospective clients by a nonprofit organization when the proposed litigation amounts to political expression in service of the public interest, and (2) the nonprofit organization will not directly influence the litigation.