Reverend Brooks Harrington

About

Author Reverend Brooks Harrington is the founder of the Methodist Justice Ministry, a pro bono legal ministry that provides legal protections and supportive services for indigent victims of child abuse and family violence. He has been a Marine infantry officer, a criminal prosecutor in Washington D.C., a litigator in private practice, an ordained United Methodist elder, and the pastor of an inner-city church.

He has written two books: nonfiction No Mercy, No Justice and novel Paloma: Happy Are Those.

  • Brooks attended George Washington University law school in Washington D.C., graduating cum laude. He then served on a law school faculty in D.C. for two years and as a federal prosecutor there for five more years. He returned to his home in Fort Worth, and was in private litigation practice from 1983 to 1991 and from 1996 to 2006. He has been honored repeatedly by vote of his peers as a “Texas Superlawyer” in Texas Monthly magazine and as one of the top 100 lawyers in Tarrant County in the Fort Worth Business Press.

    From 1991 to 1995, Brooks attended Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, graduating summa cum laude, and was senior pastor of Diamond Hill United Methodist Church in north Fort Worth. He was ordained a deacon in 1993 and an elder in the United Methodist Church in 2008. Brooks has served as an Associate Pastor on the clergy staff of First United Methodist Church in downtown Fort Worth and is now the founder and senior attorney of the MJM, representing indigent victims of family violence and child abuse.

    Brooks has been married for more than 40 years to Maxine Harrington, a retired professor and former Associate Dean of Texas A&M School of Law. They have three children and four grandchildren.

Praise for No Mercy, No Justice:

  • “Regarding the U.S. criminal justice system and poverty, Rev. Brooks Harrington has done much and perhaps seen it all. Prosecutor and minister, Harrington’s qualified insight of these social issues rings disturbingly authentic. Many citizens believe ‘the poor’ are simply victims of public policy. In the spirit of Rauschenbusch and Gladden, No Mercy, No Justice exercises biblical norms and Jesus’s gospel principles to inform believer’s treatment of the poor— our American Achilles heel..”

    David Mosser,
    Author/Editor of Transitions: Leading Churches through Change

About the methodist justice ministry

Methodist Justice Ministry is the beneficiary of all proceeds from book sales and speaking honorariums.

The Methodist Justice Ministry was founded by Reverend Brooks Harrington in 2006, first to protect indigent women and children from domestic violence, neglect and abuse, and second, to help them to new lives free of violence, abuse, fear and self-loathing.

The MJM is thoroughly faith driven. Its founder and senior attorney, Brooks Harrington, is an ordained United Methodist minister as well as a licensed attorney. MJM’s scriptural motto is: “Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and the needy.” Proverbs 31: 8-9

Since the MJM began, we have represented in court the interests of hundreds of women and children from low income households. We have not only obtained but also enforced court orders for protection, for custody, for denial or restriction of visitation by the abusers, and for child support and medical support. And we have counseled with more than 5,000 individuals desperate for help. The MJM staff presently consists of three lawyers, a legal intern and two legal assistants. We receive between 20 and 30 new requests for legal representation every week. In order to support our community's need for legal services, proceeds from No Mercy, No Justice and Paloma go to the Methodist Justice Ministry.

For more information about the Methodist Justice Ministry’s work and how you can donate, visit www.methodistjusticeministry.org.