Law school raises money in honor of Paul Brunner

Paul Brunner wasn't your ordinary guy.

Sure, he studied just as hard as any other student in the College of Law at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

But to those who knew him, he wasn't just a law student. He was an inspiration.

Brunner, 25, grew up in Scribner. He was adopted as baby, and when he was 18 months old had heart surgery for a congenital birth defect that caused two holes in his heart - the same defect that would later kill him. But Brunner wasn't one to let that get to him.

"He always persevered, he always got through it," said Marcos Flores, a third-year law student at UNL and a close friend of Brunner.

Friends remember him as the guy who always organized football and basketball game parties at his house.

"He loved to barbecue at his house," Flores said. "On Friday nights after a long week at school, when we were all pulling our hair out, he'd call everyone and rally the troops."

Brunner died Sept. 20 while exercising at his apartment complex, Northbrook Apartment Homes, located at 2901 Fletcher Ave.

Nate Osborn, another friend of Brunner and a third-year law student, reminisced about Brunner's love of travel by telling a story about a trip they took to the Yale versus Harvard football game last year. Osborn said Brunner also liked to exercise because staying fit was essential to his fragile heart.

In addition to those activities, Brunner was very devoted to his family, and friends said he was an inspiration for others to love their own families. He had three sisters and two brothers. Flores said that Brunner knew that if his adopted parents weren't so supportive of him, he wouldn't have gone to law school.

Brunner's peers said he had hoped to pursue a career as a civil rights lawyer.

"He was really proud to have made it this far in school," Osborn said. "He was one of the only - if not the only - African Americans in his town. He'd overcome a lot of adversity and he was proud to be an African American who was in law school."

Brunner wanted to be a civil rights lawyer because he wanted to give back to the community, Flores said. He had worked at a law firm in Chicago and volunteered his legal services in New Orleans shortly after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city. He was the vice president of the Black Law Students Association, Flores said.

On Tuesday, the friends and peers who knew Brunner best operated a table in the lobby of Ross McCollum Hall on East Campus, where the law college is located.

They sold T-shirts for $15 each, and the money raised from their sale will create a scholarship for students interested in civil rights litigation, Osborn said.

Anthony Ybarra, a first-year law student, said that Brunner was his "big brother" in the law school. Brunner was Ybarra's mentor and friend.

"He was a wonderful guy," Ybarra said. "He put everyone before him."

The UNL College of Law plans to award Brunner with an honorary juris doctorate degree posthumously. A memorial will be held in his honor at the law school on Friday at 4 p.m.

Osborn said they established the fund because it's something Brunner would have wanted.

Flores agreed, and said that was the perfect way to have Brunner's memory live on.

"He would walk into a room and grab everyone's attention," Flores said. "He was charismatic. Everyone loved him. We all miss him a lot."