Toby Prince Brigham

Toby Prince Brigham (November 24, 1934 – March 19, 2021) was an American lawyer and scholar in the fields of property rights and eminent domain. In addition to his law practice, Brigham involved himself with organizations and events aimed at educating and informing attorneys and legal scholars about property rights law, and the constitutional rights associated with property ownership.

Law practice

After beginning practice in his father's law firm in Miami, Florida, in 1972 Toby Prince Brigham opened his own law practice dedicated exclusively to representing private property owners in condemnation disputes. In 1978, Brigham, with S. William Moore founded the law firm of Brigham Moore, which operated several offices across Florida all dedicated to the same cause of representing property owners in eminent domain and property rights cases. Brigham Moore would go on to become Florida's largest property rights law firm and one of the nation's leading firms in the specialty, and then again with an $84 Million award. Brigham with his firm dedicated 54 years to protecting private citizens' rights in condemnation suits. As a result of these achievements, Brigham was hailed as the best trial attorney in the field of eminent domain.

Scholarship

Brigham spent decades in property rights scholarship to educate attorneys about the complexities and property law and condemnation litigation and to encourage them to cooperate, share ideas and strategies, and encourage one another. As part of this, he served as faculty or co-chair for the American Law Institute's Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Course of Study for more than twenty years.

In the 1990s, Brigham was an editor and a contributing author to Matthew Bender & Company, Inc.'s Nichols on Eminent Domain, which is recognized as the leading treatise on eminent domain law in the United States.

In 2000, Brigham founded the Owners' Counsel of America, a first-of-its-kind national association of lawyers in eminent domain and property rights law dedicated to defending the interests of private property owners.

In 2004, the College of William & Mary's Marshall–Wythe School of Law established the Brigham–Kanner Property Rights Prize, named in honor of Brigham and Gideon Kanner, Professor Emeritus of Loyola School of Law, in recognition of their lifetime contributions to the field of property rights law.