[Media Note: Vanderbilt has a 24/7 TV and radio studio with a dedicated fiber optic line and ISDN line. Use of the TV studio with Vanderbilt experts is free, except for reserving fiber time. A video of Liptak’s talk will be posted on http://news.vanderbilt.edu, http://www.vanderbilt.edu/itunesu and www.youtube.com/Vanderbilt. ]
Highly acclaimed national legal correspondent for The New York Times, Adam Liptak, will speak at Vanderbilt Law School on Monday, Sept. 20, at 4 p.m. at Flynn Auditorium as part of Vanderbilt University’s federal Constitution Day commemoration. The annual program marks the signing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787. The Liptak event is free and open to the public.
Liptak’s talk is called “The Roberts Court in the Obama Era.” He will look at the impact of the rapid changes in personnel on the court and some trends in recent decisions. He will also discuss the docket for the Supreme Court’s new term.
Liptak is a journalist and lawyer and has worked for The New York Times for much of his career. Since joining The Times’ news staff in 2002, he has covered stories such as the recent Supreme Court nominations; the investigation into the disclosure of the identity of Valerie Wilson, an undercover C.I.A. operative; the trial of Lee Boyd Malvo, one of the Washington-area snipers; judicial ethics; and various aspects of the criminal justice system, notably capital punishment. Liptak launched the “Sidebar” column in 2007, which covers legal issues and discusses the stories behind big court cases.
Liptak joined The New York Times as a copyboy in 1984 after graduating from Yale University, where he was an editor of the Yale Daily News Magazine. He earned his law degree at Yale in 1988. During law school, he worked as a summer clerk in The New York Times Company’s legal department. After graduating, he spent four years at a New York City law firm as litigation associate specializing in First Amendment matters.
In 1992, he returned to The Times’ legal department, spending a decade advising The Times and the company’s other newspapers, television stations and new media properties on defamation, privacy, news gathering and related issues, and he frequently litigated media and commercial cases. In 1995, Presstime magazine named him one of 20 leading newspaper professionals under the age of 40. In 1999, he received the New York Press Club’s John Peter Zenger award for “defending and advancing the cause of a free press.” In 2006, the same group awarded him its Crystal Gavel award for his journalistic work.
He has served as the chairman of the New York City Bar Association’s communications and media law committee, was a member of the board of the Media Law Resource Center and has taught media law at the Columbia University School of Journalism.
The event is sponsored by the Hyatt Student Activities Fund, which provides students funding to bring in outside speakers and supports student-planned symposia or conferences.
Liptak will speak at a second event on Tuesday, Sept. 21, at noon at Bass, Berry & Sims in downtown Nashville. This will be a Supreme Court preview talk. This event is jointly sponsored by the Vanderbilt Student Chapter and the Nashville Lawyer chapter of the American Constitution Society.
This event is free and open to the public, but requires attendees to RSVP in advance at http://www.acslaw.org/node/16793.
To learn more about Vanderbilt Law School, go to www.law.vanderbilt.edu. For the latest news and videos on Vanderbilt, go to http://news.vanderbilt.edu.