Topics: Lawyers

• Alfred Knight III

  Alfred M. Knight III (1937-2011) was a Nashville-based attorney who specialized in First Amendment and open-government litigation. For much of his career, he...

• Archibald Cox

  Archibald Cox (1912–2004) is best known for his role as special prosecutor in the Watergate investigation, but his career also involved a number of First...

• Arthur Hays

  Arthur Garfield Hays (1881–1954), a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union, served as its general counsel until his death. Although Hays had...

• Arthur Kinoy

  Arthur Kinoy (1920–2003) argued two cases before the Supreme Court that centered on First Amendment issues, including one challenging Mississippi’s anti-...

• Bruce Sanford
• Clarence Darrow

  Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) is one of America’s most famous defense attorneys who sought to protect free speech rights. Best known for his role in the...

• Dan Paul

  Dan Paul was an attorney best known in First Amendment circles for winning an important press-freedom and compelled-speech case. In Miami Herald Publishing Co....

• David Cortman

  David A. Cortman (1963- ) is a gifted appellate advocate who has argued several First Amendment cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He serves as senior...

• David Rabban

  David Rabban is a constitutional scholar known for his free speech work, especially a book that examined the legal interpretations of free speech during the "...

• David Rein

  David Rein (1914–1979), a civil liberties lawyer, argued a number of cases before the Supreme Court, several of them dealing with First Amendment issues:...

• Douglas Laycock

  Douglas Laycock (1948 - ) is one of the nation’s foremost religious-liberty experts and a law professor at the University of Virginia. He is known for...

• E. Barrett Prettyman Jr.

  E. Barrett Prettyman Jr. (1925–2016), a Washington, D.C., attorney, argued 19 cases before the Supreme Court. At least four involved First Amendment issues....

• Edward De Grazia

  Edward De Grazia (1927-2013) was a lawyer who specialized in defending creators of expressive works from obscenity and related charges. He represented novelist...

• Ephraim London

  Ephraim London was a leading constitutional-law attorney who successfully argued First Amendment cases before the Supreme Court. These included Burstyn v....

• Evan Lawson

  Evan T. Lawson was a Boston-based attorney who successfully argued two First Amendment cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. They were Smith v. Goguen (1974) and...

• Floyd Abrams

  Floyd Abrams (1936– ), a well-known and widely respected First Amendment lawyer, serves as senior counsel for the law firm Cahill Gordon & Reindell. He...

• H. Louis Sirkin

  H. Louis Sirkin is a Cincinnati-based attorney nationally known for his First Amendment work, defending clients in obscenity and adult entertainment cases,...

• Hayden Covington

  Hayden C. Covington was one of the most important and least heralded attorneys on First Amendment issues, especially those related to the free exercise of...

• Henry Sawyer, III

  Henry W. Sawyer III was a Philadelphia-based civil liberties attorney who successfully argued two of the most important religious liberty cases before the...

• James Goodale

  James C. Goodale, a prominent First Amendment attorney, is best known for leading the New York Times in its successful litigation in the Pentagon Papers case...

• Jay Sekulow

  Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, is a leading Supreme Court litigator. He has argued numerous First Amendment cases...

• John Connell

  John C. Connell is an attorney who specializes in First Amendment law. He is best known for successfully representing musician Simon Tam pro bono in Matal v....

• Joseph Forer

  Joseph Forer, a civil liberties attorney, achieved prominence by challenging the constitutionality of federal laws used to target suspected members of the...

• Joseph Rauh, Jr.

  Joseph L. Rauh Jr. was a renowned civil liberties lawyer who argued numerous cases before the Supreme Court, including at least three that dealt with First...

• Laurence Tribe

  Laurence Tribe, a professor at Harvard Law School, is regarded as one of the preeminent scholars in the field of constitutional law and First Amendment...

• Lawrence Speiser

  Lawrence Speiser may be the only person who has successfully represented himself before the Supreme Court in a First Amendment case. A civil rights attorney who...

• Lee C. Bollinger

  Lee C. Bollinger (1946– ), a legal scholar of the First Amendment and freedom of speech, is best known for advocating tolerance theory, which argues that...

• Leo Pfeffer

  Leo Pfeffer (1909–1993), was one of the twentieth century’s most active litigators on church–state issues. He was a prolific writer and advocated for...

• Leonard Boudin

  Leonard Boudin, a prominent civil liberties attorney who died in 1989, argued many First Amendment cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including cases related...

• Lloyd Cutler

  Lloyd Cutler successfully argued three First Amendment cases before the Supreme Court during the 1970s and '80s. Especially notable was the landmark case...

• Louis Nizer

  Louis Nizer was a noted trial lawyer who successfully argued two First Amendment cases involving film censorship before the Supreme Court...

• Martin Garbus

  Martin Grabus is regarded as one of the top First Amendment lawyer–litigators in the United States. He has participated in defamation and intellectual...

• Martin Redish

  Law professor Martin H. Redish is one of the nation’s foremost authorities on the First Amendment. He argued that commercial speech should have First...

• Melville Nimmer

  Melville Bernard Nimmer, an expert in copyright law and freedom of expression, was a defender of the First Amendment in the Supreme Court case Cohen v....

• Melvin Wulf

  Melvin L. Wulf is a constitutional lawyer whose special field of practice is intellectual property. He also has extensive experience in other First Amendment...

• Murray Gurfein

  Murray Gurfein was best known for his ruling as a district court judge in the Pentagon Papers case, a clash between national security interests and First...

• Osmond Fraenkel

  Osmond K. Fraenkel was one of the leading civil liberties attorneys of the 20th century. He argued many First Amendment cases before the Supreme Court...

• Peter Banta

  Peter Banta was a New Jersey-based attorney active in First Amendment law.  He represented a litany of leading media entities in his career, including The New...

• Robert Carter

  Robert Carter (1917-2012) successfully presented several First Amendment cases to the Supreme Court related to the civil rights movement and freedom of...

• Robert Corn-Revere

  Robert Corn-Revere is a leading First Amendment attorney. He has represented college students in free speech cases. He also successfully argued United States v...

• Roslyn Litman

  Roslyn Litman (1928-2016), successfully argued before the Supreme Court that religious and nativity displays in and outside the county courthouse in Pittsburgh...

• Roy Cohn

  Attorney Roy Cohn (1927–1986) is best known for his work as the chief counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, whose interrogations of alleged communists during the...

• Stanley Fleishman

  Stanley Fleishman (1920–1999) was a leading First Amendment attorney who appeared before the Supreme Court to argue several obscenity cases. He managed to...

• Steven Swander

  Steven H. Swander (1951-2012) was a Texas-based First Amendment attorney known for his passion for free speech, zeal for life, and defending the underdog...

• Thomas Goldstein

  Thomas C. Goldstein has argued more than 15 cases before the high court, including some First Amendment cases. He also started the Supreme Court of the United...

• Victor Rabinowitz

  Victor Rabinowitz, an attorney known for his passionate defense of individual liberties, participated in numerous high-profile First Amendment cases throughout...

• Vincent Blasi
• Walter Pollak

  Walter Pollak (1887–1940) was a leading civil rights attorney in the 1920s. He represented American Communists Benjamin Gitlow and Charlotte Whitney in free...

• William Jennings Bryan
• William Kunstler