Jeffrey Redfern

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Senior Attorney

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Education

Harvard Law School, 2012

Clerkships

IJ’s Minnesota Office

Memberships

Licensed in the District of Columbia and Minnesota

Jeffrey Redfern litigates constitutional cases protecting property rights and free speech.

Jeffrey was the lead attorney in Baker v. City of McKinney, a case in which, for the first time in history, a federal court ruled that an innocent homeowner was entitled to compensation when her house was destroyed by a SWAT raid. The court explained that even though the police acted lawfully in trying to apprehend a dangerous fugitive who had barricaded himself inside an innocent person’s house, “it cannot be the case that public good could be done at the cost of the individual.”

Jeffrey litigates cases around the country challenging eminent domain abuse, where the government tries to take private property and give it to other private parties. He also litigates cases to ensure that when government does take property, it pays just compensation. He files amicus briefs on eminent domain issues in state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, and he has testified in support of eminent domain reforms before Congress.

In his free speech practice, Jeffrey has fought for the First Amendment rights of book publishers and talk therapists to be free of government regulation targeted at the content of their speech.

In 2019, Jeffrey successfully represented the owners of a small liquor store before the U.S. Supreme Court in Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Association v. Thomas. The Court held that states cannot engage in protectionism by imposing durational residency requirements on newly arrived residents, even in the context of the Twenty-First Amendment.

Before joining IJ, Jeffrey was a member of the appellate group at Mayer Brown LLP, where he authored briefs on various constitutional issues in the U.S. Supreme Court and in lower federal and state courts. He has argued cases before the First, Second, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Tenth Circuits, as well as the Colorado Supreme Court. Jeffrey clerked for Judge Laurence Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where he learned to loathe acronyms.

Jeffrey earned his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 2012. Between his first and second years of law school, he clerked at IJ’s Minnesota office. That experience inspired him to file his own pro se constitutional lawsuit against the government while still in school. (After over two years of litigation, the government finally provided the relief he requested.)

Before law school, Jeffrey taught AP English at a prep school in Southern California. He earned his MA in humanities from the University of Chicago in 2006 and his BA in English, magna cum laude, from Carleton College in 2005. He is a member of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court and the Historical Society of the D.C. Circuit.

In his free time, Jeffrey is a competitive distance runner. He won the 2018 Baltimore Marathon, and he has a personal best of 2 hours and 28 minutes.