George Freeman

George Freeman is vice president and assistant general counsel of The New York Times Company and the William J. Brennan visiting professor at the Columbia Journalism School. He is also involved in newsroom counseling, antitrust and distribution problems, employment relations, and business counseling involving the Times's news, advertising, circulation, and personnel departments. He has worked in these areas for the Company's affiliated newspapers as well since he began work for the Times in 1981.

Freeman is co-chair of the American Bar Association's Litigation Section's First Amendment and Media Litigation Committee. He is also past chair of the ABA's Forum on Communication Law. From 1992 to 1996, Freeman was chairman of the New York State Bar Association Media Law Committee. Previously, he had served as chair of that organization's cameras in the courts subcommittee. He also chairs the Access and Newsgathering Subcommittee of the Newspaper Association of America's Legal Affairs Committee.

He is a frequent lecturer and moderator of panels on First Amendment issues and has been on the Practicing Law Institute's Communications Law faculty since 1985. He also was founder and remains co-chair of the Boca Conference, a winter meeting on First Amendment issues bringing together 250 media attorneys nationwide, which recently celebrated its 15th anniversary.

He has participated in a conference in Moscow on "Democratic Governance and a Free Press" with Russian government officials, and has toured China as a member of the New York Bar Association Delegation.

In 2000-01, he was co-chair of an ABA Task Force on jury initiatives and in 2001-03 was co-chair of its Task Force on the Public Perception of Lawyers.

Prior to coming to the Times, Freeman was an associate at the New York law firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel, where he represented the Times in litigation of several significant cases.

Since 1998, Freeman has been an adjunct professor at New York University, teaching media law courses to both undergraduate and graduate journalism students. Since 2007 he has taught at the graduate journalism school of the City University of New York and in 2009-10 he taught at the Columbia Journalism School. Freeman was a lecturer-at-law at the University of Miami Law School in 1975-76, following his cum laude graduation from Harvard Law School in 1975. He graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College in 1971. From 1973 to 1974, Freeman served as assistant to the dean at Vermont Law School.

TOPICS

The Government, the Press & National Security: From the Pentagon Papers to Wikileaks

Is There a Defense for False Speech? Are the Rules Different on the Internet & in the Rest of the World?

Contemporary First Amendment Issues in American Media

Representing The New York Times: Is it Unique?