Employment, Media, Education and Competition Law Section
Section Head: Michael McMenamin

First Amendment & Media Defense Group

Practice Group Chair:  Michael McMenamin

Walter & Haverfield has developed a national law practice representing media, entertainment and communications industry clients across the country. The six attorneys who make up the firm’s First Amendment and Media Defense Group take a team-approach with their media, entertainment and communications clients, becoming involved from the newsroom to the courtroom to protect the public’s right to know.

With an emphasis on litigation prevention, Walter & Haverfield provides pre-publication libel and privacy review of scripts and news stories, as well as advice and counsel regarding potential publisher liability for advertising and other editorial content. Our First Amendment lawyers assist our clients to obtain access to court proceedings and public information, as guaranteed not only by the Constitution, but by federal and state Freedom of Information Act laws.

Walter & Haverfield also utilizes its resources and expertise to defend against other intrusions into our media clients’ news gathering processes, represented by journalists’ subpoenas, and other attempts by the government and private litigants to obtain unpublished materials, as well as the identity of reporters’ sources. Members of the First Amendment and Media Defense Group are active in both local and nationally-based professional associations involved with current media and communications law issues.

Walter & Haverfield is a charter member of the Defense Counsel Section of the Media Law Resource Center in New York and authors the Ohio chapter of the annual 50-State Survey on Media Privacy and Related Law published by the MLRC.

Walter & Haverfield’s First Amendment and Media Defense Group lawyers have experience in a wide spectrum of media-related litigation:

• Defended defamation claims arising out of both print and broadcast news and investigative reports.
  
  
• Defended invasion of privacy, trespass, intentional infliction of emotional distress, wiretap and other claims arising out of reporters’ news gathering activities.
  
  
• Defended copyright infringement claims brought against television and movie production companies wherein plaintiffs claimed that their transcripts and/or photographs have been used without their permission.
  
  
• Instituted mandamus actions to force the release of public records by state and federal government agencies in compliance with state and federal Freedom of Information Act laws.
  
  
• Defended civil rights claims brought jointly against local government officials and the media claiming that the media conspired with the local government to violate a plaintiff’s civil rights.
  
  
• Filed motions to quash subpoenas issued on reporters by both criminal and civil litigants seeking to obtain reporters’ notes, outtakes, and/or the identity of reporters’ sources.
  
  
• Defended claims of breach of contract and promissory estoppel asserted against reporters by sources claiming that the reporter had breached a promise of confidentiality.
  
  
• Authored amicus briefs on behalf of diverse media coalitions in public records cases before the Ohio Supreme Court .

The following regional and national media entities have engaged lawyers in Walter & Haverfield’s First Amendment and Media Defense Group for advice, counsel and defense litigation representation:

Attorneys Practicing In This Area

Darrell A.  Clay

Christine T. Cossler

Michael  McMenamin

Leslie G. Wolfe