Laura R. Handman

Won important unanimous choice of law decision in Montana Supreme Court, applying New York's absolute fair report privilege and obtaining dismissal of libel suit against the New York Post (March, 2024).

Defending Greenpeace in two nine-figure libel/civil RICO claims brought by the owner of the Dakota Access Pipeline currently heading to trial in Morton County, ND; and the other brought by the largest logging company in Canada; summary judgment granted and over $600,000 in fees (N.D. Cal. 2023), (settled); obtained 7-0 decision from the Montana Supreme Court applying New York fair report privilege to libel claim by Montana resident against the New York Post. (2024); obtained affirmance by the 4th Circuit of dismissal of libel claim rejecting respondeat superior liability of MSNBC for a tweet of contributor on his personal account (2021); obtained first application of newly amended California retraction statute to apply to publications by an advocacy group (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to dismiss libel claim by an elephant hunter (Cal. Super. 2021); obtained an interlocutory appeal and reversal dismissing libel claim against Bloomberg Law with a ringing endorsement of actual malice by Justice Kavanaugh, then on the D.C. Circuit (2017); defeated libel suit, affirmed by the D.C. Circuit, against Pulitzer Prize-winner Jim Risen and his book publisher for calling plaintiff's antiterrorism software a "hoax" (2017); obtained dismissal of libel claim for a tweet accusing plaintiff of making a white-power gesture (2018).

Obtained FOIA documents resulting in Pulitzer Prize winning article by Caitlin Dickerson with The Atlantic. Overturned a 34-year-old injunction preventing disclosure by the Department of Health and Human Services under the Freedom of Information Act of what doctors receive from Medicare, leading to the Pulitzer Prize for The Wall Street Journal (2014); established application of New York Shield Law to niche subscription-only online publications (2017); responding to search warrant for recordings of communications with Alexa on Amazon's Echo devices (2017-18); quashing subpoena for reporter's testimony regarding a sexual assault claim (2024) interview with Jeffrey Epstein's victim (2016); amicus in D.C. Circuit decision recognizing common law right of access to warrants for stored communications and wiretaps (2020). 

Obtained dismissal affirmed by the Second Circuit of copyright claim against Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic, Penguin Random House, et al. (2023). Obtained dismissal of a copyright claim against Chelsea Clinton and Penguin Random House for her best-selling children's book, "She Persisted" (2018).