 Floyd Abrams in 2006. |
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| Born | July 9, 1936 (age 76) |
| Nationality | United States |
| Alma mater | Cornell University Yale Law School |
| Occupation | Attorney |
| Employer | Cahill Gordon & Reindel |
| Known for | Several First Amendment cases |
Floyd Abrams (born July 9, 1936) is an American attorney at Cahill Gordon & Reindel. He is an expert on constitutional law, and many arguments in the briefs he has written before the United States Supreme Court have been adopted as United States Constitutional interpretative law as it relates to the First Amendment and free speech. He is the William J. Brennan Jr. Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. Abrams argued for The New York Times and Judith Miller in the CIA leak grand jury investigation. Abrams joined Cahill Gordon & Reindel in 1963, and became a partner in 1970.
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Personal
Abrams earned his undergraduate degree from Cornell University in 1956, and his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1960. He is Jewish[1] and lives in New York City with wife Efrat. Together they have a son, Dan Abrams of ABC, and a daughter, Judge Ronnie Abrams of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.[2] He is a member of the Constitution Project‘s Liberty and Security Committee[3] and a patron of the Media Legal Defence Initiative.
Early career and legal scholarship
From 1961-63, Abrams clerked for Judge Paul Leahy of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. He returned to Yale as a Visiting Lecturer from 1974–80, and again from 1986-89. He was also a Visiting Lecturer at Columbia Law School from 1981-85.
Important First Amendment Cases
Abrams appearance before the Supreme Court as an advocate of the First Amendment has put him in a class of prominent and still-working legal scholars who have shaped American understanding of their fundamental rights under the United States Constitution. In his 2005 book Speaking Freely, he outlines his knowledge of and perspective on these influential cases (listed in the main article above). Abrams said these cases showcase the work that has been done on free speech in the United States.[4] Fellow Supreme Court attorney Lee Levine[disambiguation needed], in a book review, wrote that “the modern history of the freedom of the press in this country is intimately associated with the career and work of Floyd Abrams.” His career matured in the late 1960s, right after the Supreme Court decided New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964). He has worked on the Pentagon Papers and Branzburg v. Hayes (1972), to Landmark Communications v. Virginia (1978) and Smith v. Daily Mail Publishing Co. (1979), to Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart (1976). He has defended numerous clients, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art from Rudolph Giuliani over the Sensation exhibition, NBC from Wayne Newton, and Al Franken from a trademark lawsuit brought by Fox News Channel over the use of the phrase “Fair and Balanced” in the title of his book.[5] He is currently representing five tobacco companies including R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and Lorillard Tobacco in their lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration over graphic warning labels on cigarette packs,[6] contending that requiring graphic warning labels on a lawful product cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny.[7] The Association of National Advertisers and the American Advertising Federation have also filed a brief in the suit.[8] In August 2012, in a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. upheld a lower court ruling that the federal government’s warning labels violated the First Amendment.[9] He also led a successful challenge to a New York City Board of Health regulation that required retailers at “points of sale” to display graphics on the hazards of tobacco use.[10]
Recognition
- William J. Brennan, Jr. Award for outstanding contribution to public discourse (1998)
- Learned Hand Award of the American Jewish Committee
- Thurgood Marshall Award of the New York State Bar Association
- William J. Brennan, Jr. Award of the Libel Defense Resource Center (1999)
- Milton S. Gould Award for outstanding appellate advocacy by the New York Office of the Appellate Defender (1997)
- Ross Essay Prize of the American Bar Association
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006)[11]
- Certificate of Merit from the American Bar Association for his article The New Effort to Control Information, published in The New York Times.
- Ranked among the top two leading trial lawyers in New York for First Amendment Cases by Chambers USA: Leading Lawyers for Business (2006)
- Who’s Who in American Law
- 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America by The National Law Journal (2006)
- Ronald K.L. Collins, Nuanced Absolutism: Floyd Abrams & the First Amendment (2013)
Criticism
In a column on Slate entitled Memo to Cooper and Miller: Fire Floyd Abrams. Hire Bruce Sanford, Jack Shafer felt Abrams’s First Amendment argument was weaker than others’ on behalf of the reporters in the Valerie Plame affair. In the majority opinion, Judge Sentelle found Abrams’ assertion that a First Amendment privilege protects Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller from the subpoena to lack merit. They ordered both reporters to talk to the grand jury about their confidential sources or face jail for contempt, which Miller ultimately did. “Maybe a First Amendment legend isn’t what this case called for in the first place,” said Shafer. “Maybe Cooper and Miller would have been better served by having a criminal lawyer who knows how to bargain.” Shafer thought Abrams’ expertise was not adequately enough suited for the subject matter: “…my guess is that they won’t [agree to hear the case] if it’s argued on First Amendment grounds, preferring to let their Branzburg precedent stand.”[12]
Quotes by Abrams
- “I really believe that a lawyer – no matter how good – if he or she is really worth their weight in salt, they will lose some cases because, after all, it is not really one of those secretive things that not everything is decided by who your lawyer is.”[13]
- “In August 1967 I spent a few days in New Delhi, visiting a friend who had been a law school classmate seven years earlier. She was a princess—a genuine one, from a still-powerful regal family. In New York, when we were studying together, I had taken her to a Yankee game. In New Delhi she reciprocated by taking me to her fortune-teller—not just hers, but that of a bevy of Indian leaders, including former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter and successor as prime minister, Indira Gandhi…. Before I was thirty-five, he said, I would go to my country’s capital to work on something that was important. The work, he said, would make me famous. It was not the sort of prediction that one entirely forgets. I was then thirty-one.”[14]
- “I then described two of my favorite First Amendment cases, the first of which was the 1966 Supreme Court ruling in Mills v. Alabama…. The other case was commenced by a Miami labor leader, Pat Tornillo, who was a candidate for the Florida House of Representatives. The Miami Herald had published editorials criticizing Tornillo; the union leader had responded by demanding that the Herald publish, verbatim, replies he had written to each editorial.”[15]
Quotes about Abrams
- “Ask someone to name a First Amendment lawyer. If they answer, one-hundred percent of the time the answer will be the same: Floyd Abrams. Then ask them to name another such lawyer. The answer: silence. It is a sign of the times that the name Floyd Abrams is synonymous with the First Amendment in a way that virtually no other name is.” First Amendment Center.[16]
- “[Floyd Abrams is the] most significant First Amendment lawyer of our age.” Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.[17]
Please continue @:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Abrams
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John Keker, Kamala Harris, Maya Harris, Tony West and Willie Brown. John Keker is a long time mentor of Kamala Harris who is the sister of Maya Harris who is married to Tony West who is “mentee” of Willie Brown who is Kamala Harris’ former paramour. (Sources please see HERE and HERE and HERE)
Morrison & Foerster Team: Chris Young, James Brosnahan, Tony West, Annette Carnegie, Susan Mac Cormac, and Eric Tate
McGeorge School of Law – “Pacific Pathways” – Make Believe Launching of SAL – Manoa Law School Hawaii Summit June 2007: Chris Young, Kevin Johnson, CaliforniaALL’s Sarah E. Redfield, CaliforniaALL’s Judge Morrison England, CaliforniaALL’s Torie Flournoy-England, CaliforniaALL’s Ruthe Catolico Ashley, CaliforniaALL’s Larissa Parecki. See HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE . Manoa Law School Hawaii Summit See HERE (Judy Johnson – not shown)
Three-Card-Monte: John Keker, Elliot Peters, Jan Little, Matt Werdegar, Jon Streeter, Chris Young. Hoping to conceal the identity and past actions of Chris Young , Keker & Van Nest removed Chris Young’s attorney profile from its website. Only after YR managed to unearth Young’s identity and only after YR filed an ethics complaint against John Keker, Jon Streeter, and Chris Young in connection with the attempt to defraud the public by concealing Young’s association with Keker & Van Nest, Young’s attorney profile has been restored to the firm’s site. See story HERE
John Keker, Jon Streeter, District Attorney of Yolo County Jeff Reisig, Twice Rico defendant Jeannine English. Hoping to retaliate against Yolo County’s YR and to otherwise sabotage his inquiry into CaliforniaALL, subsequent to the removal of Chris Young’s attorney profile from Keker & Van Nest website – and allegedly acting in their capacity as members of the State Bar of California Board of Governors — Jon Streeter, Jeannine English, Gwen Moore, Dennis Mangers, Voice of OC’s Joe Dunn, as well as others conspired to press false criminal charges against YR with the District Attorney of Yolo County. See story HERE
Filed under: Keker & Van Nest, Uncategorized Tagged: Cahill Gordon & Reindel, Floyd Abrams, John Keker
