where he had a legal practice,[clarification needed][1] and became a guidance counselor and teacher[1]—the latter, beginning with English literature, at East High School.
[citation needed] Brierly took an active role in mentoring young men he considered bright students, to help motivate them and use his connections to place them in college.
][citation needed] Future aerospace CEO and Defense Department official Norman Ralph Augustine was among the students Brierly mentored.
[3] During World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill invited Brierly to England as a consultant on the evacuation of children from urban areas at risk from German bombing.
[1][better source needed] In 1941, Brierly met Cassady, then a 15-year-old juvenile delinquent who would become a significant influence on the Beat writers and a countercultural icon in his own right.
Cassady continued his criminal activities, however, and was repeatedly arrested from 1942 to 1944; on at least one of these occasions, he was released by law enforcement into Brierly's safekeeping.
[11] Due in part to the publisher's fear of a libel suit from Brierly, considered one of the few "respectable" figures in the book, Kerouac substantially trimmed his depiction.
[citation needed] As a practicing attorney, Brierly served as an assistant to the president of Colorado Women's College following his retirement from the public schools.