Laura R Handman

Practice Areas

Representing content publishers—U.S. and foreign; digital, print and broadcast; and for-profit and nonprofit—Laura Handman draws upon her three decades of experience helping her clients bring to light newsworthy information and then defending them from complaint through appeal. Along the way, Laura has established many of the key precedents that have strengthened the protection for content – winning the first U.S. decisions to refuse to enforce foreign libel judgments, leading to passage of the SPEECH ACT; establishing the standard in New York for libel by implication; establishing a heightened standard before, the government can access records of a customer's expressive content purchases on Amazon, establishing that internet rankings are opinion, and securing for satire protection from libel and right of publicity claims. Laura is on the executive committees of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Counsel for Court Excellence, on the Board of Overseers of the Columbia Journalism Review, and on the Board of The Nantucket Inquirer & Mirror. Laura was ranked Band 1 in Chambers and was Law 360's MVP in Entertainment and Media (2016).

Professional Memberships

Steering Committee - Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Testimony, House Judiciary Committee, Maryland General Assembly – Testified on behalf of MD/DE/DC Press Association and the Washington Post against bill to establish statutory and descendible right of publicity in Maryland, February 2013

Testimony, Hearing on Libel Tourism (libel suits brought against U.S.-based defendants in foreign countries) and HR 6146 (related amendment to federal judicial code), Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law of the House Judiciary Committee, February 2009

Advisory Board, Digital Media Law Project, Online Media Legal Network, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law School

Co-Taught "Journalism, Law & Society," Columbia Journalism School, Summer 2011

Co-chair, Dialogue Project: Conversations with Bench, Bar and Press, Council for Court Excellence, 2010–present

Co-chair, Project Committee, "Journalists' Handbook to the Courts in the District of Columbia," published by the Council for Court Excellence, 2009

Executive Committee, Council for Court Excellence, 2010-present

Founder and past Chair, Media Law Committee, Arts, Entertainment and Sports Law Section, District of Columbia Bar

Past Chair, Communications and Media Law Committee, Association of the Bar of the City of New York

Past President, Defense Counsel Section, Libel Defense Resource Center