filed by the NAACP against the Attorney General of Virginia (first J. Lindsay Almond then when he resigned to run for governor his interim successor Kenneth Cartwright Patty, and later other successors), to have the five barratry, champerty, maintenance, running and capping laws thrown out as an unconstitutional infringement of its members' rights under the 1st Amendment to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. The district court overturned three of the laws on constitutional grounds, and remanded the remaining two to state courts. The newly elected Attorney General, Albertis S. Harrison, Jr., appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, although he delegated the case to outside counsel David J. Mays who argued it on March 23 and 24, 1959, with future justice Thurgood Marshall arguing on behalf of the NAACP. In Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U.S. 167 (June 8, 1959), the U.S. Supreme Court accepted Mays' arguments and held that the federal district court should have abstained from deciding the laws' constitutionality until state courts had had a reasonable chance to construe them. The NAACP then pursued its suit in state court, suing Harrison and later substituting his successors as Virginia Attorney General (initially Frederick Gray then Robert Button, since Harrison resigned to run for Governor, and was elected on the Democratic ticket with Button), in the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond to have the two remaining statutes overturned on constitutional grounds. During the three day trial, the NAACP (represented by Robert L. Carter of New York and Oliver W. Hill of Richmond) called its Executive Secretary W. Lester Banks to establish the harms the new provisions had caused, as membership dropped significantly even though the NAACP refused to disclose its membership lists as required by the new laws. Attorneys representing Virginia's attorney general questioned several Virginia attorneys who handled NAACP cases, as well as more than a dozen plaintiffs in such actions. Meanwhile, in February 1960, the NAACP and other organizations began sit-ins to support desegregation. The Virginia State Bar, following the reports of the Boatwright committee, also initiated disbarment proceedings against NAACP attorney Samuel W. Tucker in Emporia, Virginia based on the expanded laws. The NAACP brought in attorney Robert Ming from Chicago to defend Tucker, and after two years of litigation, state judges dismissed the charges against Tucker in early 1962. This did, however, keep desegregation progress slow. By the fall of 1960, NAACP litigation