Practice Focus

• Access to governmental records and proceedings
• Protection of newsgathering materials and confidential sources
• Prepublication review
• Review of contracts for authors, journalists and writers
• Litigation representing publishers, authors and reports in state and federal courts including: First Amendment rights; defamation, invasion of privacy and other media torts; and New Hampshire Right-to-know law and Freedom of Information Act.

Representative Matters

• Served as counsel to a web-site host in New Hampshire's first case addressing the rights of Internet publishers to gather and publish the news.
• Serving as counsel to WMUR-TV, New Hampshire's largest television station
• Successfully representing regional and national broadcasters and newspapers in a landmark effort to gain access to the courtroom for video and still cameras. Petition of WMUR Channel 9, 148 N.H. 644 (2002)
• Serving as legal counsel to New Hampshire newspapers including the Concord Monitor, the Keene Sentinel and the Valley News
• Representing national publications such as the New York Times, USA Today, The Boston Globe, Fortune, Time and Business Week as well as The Associated Press
• Defending book publishers including St. Martin's Press, Bantam Doubleday, Harper Collins and Time-Life Books.
• Achieving successful defense in other defamation cases, such as Hugel v. Milberg Weiss Bershad Haynes and Lerach, LLP, 175 F. 3d 14 (1st Cir. 1999)
• Serving as counsel for the press in important landmark First Amendment cases and freedom of speech cases affecting the citizens and media in New Hampshire, including State v. Siel, 122 N.H. 254 (1982) (established qualified reporter's privilege in criminal cases) and Thomson v. Cash, 117 N.H. 653 (1977) (afforded access to court records)

Business and Industry Sectors Represented

• Newspapers and magazines
• Radio and television broadcasters
• Journalists and reporters
• Book publishers
• Authors
• Internet publishers, authors and bloggers
• Media trade associations

Lawyers in this practice also lead seminars on First Amendment and defamation issues and have written the New Hampshire chapters in the 50-State Survey of Libel Law (Libel Defense Resource Center) and also in the The Reporter's Privilege Compendium: A Guide to State and Federal Law Concerning News Media Subpoenas and Tapping Officials' Secrets: The Door to Open Government in New Hampshire both published by The Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Members in this Practice Area