((HT: Austin American-Statesman))

Mina Brees, a prominent Austin attorney and former president of the Austin Bar Association who was recently subpoenaed by the Texas attorney general’s office, died in Colorado, a family member said. She was 59.

Marty Akins, Brees’ brother who is also a lawyer and former University of Texas quarterback, said he was told Friday morning that Brees died in Colorado, where she was visiting her son Reid. Akins said he did not know the cause of her death.

“It’s my understanding that she was at her girlfriend’s house,” Akins said. “That’s all I know. I just know that she passed away, and I loved her very much.”

Brees, the mother of New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, a former Westlake High standout, had her business records subpoenaed Tuesday after she sent letters informing a number of prominent Austin and Houston restaurants that they had lost the legal right to use their business names — but could get them back for up to $25,000.

The mailings, bearing the letterhead of Brees’ law office and dated July 20, said Brees represented a company, Chicksports Inc., that had assumed ownership of the restaurant names because the current owners neglected to reserve them or failed to renew them under Texas business codes. The letters did not mention that Brees was the president of Chicksports or that the corporation shared her law office’s address and phone number.

The Texas Restaurant Association, however, alerted its members to Brees’ activity, saying there was no reason for restaurants to pay Chicksports for continuing to use their names.

Brees received the Austin Bar Association’s 2005 professionalism award for legal ethics and professionalism. In 2006, she came within 22,168 votes of being elected to the state 3rd Court of Appeals in 2006, losing to Republican incumbent David Puryear by 4.5 percentage points. Brees ran as a Democrat.

Brees’ campaign was hurt when Drew Brees asked his mother to stop using his likeness in campaign ads. He said his relationship with his mother had soured and was nonexistent.