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Sayre Weaver is Of Counsel to Richards, Watson & Gershon and
a member of the firm’s Litigation Department. Ms. Weaver received
her B.A. from Yale University and her J.D. from Yale Law School.
After several years as a criminal prosecutor with the Los Angeles
County District Attorney’s Office, she joined the firm, and
developed an expertise in constitutional litigation. She has practiced
extensively in both the federal and the state courts.
In 1996 Ms. Weaver assisted the City of West Hollywood in drafting
an innovative local law prohibiting the sale of “junk guns”
in that city. She then successfully defended that ordinance in the
trial and appellate courts. The published decision, California Rifle
& Pistol Ass’n v. City of West Hollywood, 66 Cal. App.
4th 1302 (1998) is acknowledged as a landmark decision establishing
that California’s local governments retain a wide scope of
authority to regulate firearms. More recently, Ms. Weaver successfully
defended the County of Alameda’s ordinance prohibiting possession
of firearms and ammunition on County-owned property against a series
of challenges in federal and state court, including defeating plaintiff’s
petition for review in the United States Supreme Court. Nordyke
v. King, 319 F.3d 1185 (9th Cir. 2003), cert. denied 543 U.S. 820
(2004). These cases have established Ms. Weaver as a leading authority
on the scope of local regulation to regulate firearms in California.
In 2005, Ms. Weaver was awarded a California Wellness Foundation
Peace Prize in recognition of her legal work on firearms-related
issues. In 2007, she received a Courageous Leadership Award from
Women Against Gun Violence.
Ms. Weaver has also successfully represented public clients in
challenges to local taxes, “takings” challenges, and
in all stages of eminent domain proceedings. She is admitted to
practice in California, before the United States District Courts
for the Central and Northern Districts of California, before the
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals,
and the United States Supreme Court. She is a member of the American
Bar Association, the America Association of Justice, the Federal
Bar Association, and in 2006 was elected a Fellow of the American
Bar Foundation.
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