Browns Pick Lawyer for Their Appeal

ANAHEIM HILLS — Ronald E. Lais, an Anaheim Hills attorney, will represent Louis and Juditha Brown in their appeal of a Superior Court decision last week granting custody of their grandchildren to O.J. Simpson.

Lais, who once filed a suit on behalf of Mark and Crispina Calvert related to their precedent-setting surrogacy case, is expected to bring appellate expertise to the Browns’ team of attorneys.

Natasha Roit and Eric L. Lagin, who represented the Browns during the custody trial, will stay on as the Browns appeal last week’s decision awarding custody of Sydney, 11, and Justin, 8, to Simpson.

Lais said he will argue that Orange County Superior Court Judge Nancy Wieben Stock erred by not allowing evidence from Simpson’s murder trial, which ended in acquittal, into the custody trial.

A hearing before Stock is scheduled for Jan. 10 to halt her decision pending appeal.

Lais, 54, once was arrested in Minnesota and charged with kidnapping while trying to help a client regain custody of her son and daughter. That and other charges were later dismissed. Lais also was fined $14,675 by the judge for what was deemed a frivolous lawsuit against a psychologist in that 1994 case.

“I’m just a very aggressive lawyer,” he said of the incident.

The Calvert case dates to 1990, when surrogate mother Anna M. Johnson reneged on a $10,000 agreement to bear the Calverts’ child and sued for parental rights. The case ended when the U.S. Supreme Court awarded the Calverts custody, although Lais at one point sued the organization affiliated with the surrogate mother, the Center for Surrogate Parenting Inc., for fraud, breach of contract and infliction of emotional distress. Lais said Monday that the case had been settled out of court under a confidential agreement.