Adam Liptak
Encyclopedia
Adam Liptak is an American
journalist, lawyer and instructor in journalism. He is currently the Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times
. In July 2008, Liptak was assigned to take over coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court
following the retirement of Linda Greenhouse
who had covered the high court for nearly thirty years.
He has also written articles for The New Yorker
, Vanity Fair
, Rolling Stone
, the New York Observer
, Business Week and other publications.
Liptak was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
for explanatory journalism in 2009 for a series of articles examining ways in which the American legal system differs from those of other developed nations.
and Samuel Alito
; the investigation into the disclosure of the identity of Valerie Plame
, an undercover Central Intelligence Agency
operative; the trial of John Lee Malvo
, one of the Washington-area snipers; judicial ethics; and various aspects of the criminal justice system, notably capital punishment. He inaugurated the Sidebar column in January 2007. The column covers and considers developments in the law.
In 2005, he examined the rise in life sentences in the U.S. in a three-part series. The next year, he and two colleagues studied connections between contributions to the campaigns of justices on the Ohio Supreme Court and those justices' voting records. He was a member of the teams that examined the reporting of Jayson Blair
and Judith Miller
at The New York Times.
Liptak was born in Stamford
, Connecticut
. He first joined The New York Times as a copyboy in 1984, after graduation from Yale University
, where he was an editor of the Yale Daily News
, with a degree in English. In addition to clerical work and fetching coffee, he assisted the reporter M. A. Farber
in covering the trial of a libel suit brought by General William Westmoreland
against CBS
.
He returned to Yale for a law degree, graduating from Yale Law School
in 1988. During law school, Liptak worked as a summer clerk in The New York Times Company
's legal department. After graduating, he spent four years at Cahill Gordon & Reindel
, a New York City law firm, as a litigation associate specializing in First Amendment
matters.
In 1992, he returned to The New York Times Company's legal department, spending a decade advising The New York 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 twenty leading newspaper professionals under the age of forty. 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.
Liptak has taught media law at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
, UCLA School of Law
and Yale Law School.
While working as a lawyer, he wrote occasional book reviews for The New York Times and The New York Observer and contributed to other sections of The New York Times. His work has also appeared in The American Lawyer
. He has written several law review articles as well, generally on First Amendment topics.
, with his wife, Jennifer Bitman, a veterinarian, and their children, Ivan and Katie Liptak.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist, lawyer and instructor in journalism. He is currently the Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
. In July 2008, Liptak was assigned to take over coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
following the retirement of Linda Greenhouse
Linda Greenhouse
Linda Greenhouse is the Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence and Joseph M. Goldstein Senior Fellow at Yale Law School...
who had covered the high court for nearly thirty years.
He has also written articles for The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
, Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, the New York Observer
New York Observer
The New York Observer is a weekly newspaper first published in New York City on September 22, 1987, by Arthur L. Carter, a very successful former investment banker with publishing interests. The Observer focuses on the city's culture, real estate, the media, politics and the entertainment and...
, Business Week and other publications.
Liptak was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
for explanatory journalism in 2009 for a series of articles examining ways in which the American legal system differs from those of other developed nations.
Education and career
Since Liptak, a lawyer, joined The New York Times news staff in 2002, he has contributed reporting and analysis on legal matters. He covered the Supreme Court nominations of John RobertsJohn Roberts
John Glover Roberts, Jr. is the 17th and current Chief Justice of the United States. He has served since 2005, having been nominated by President George W. Bush after the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist...
and Samuel Alito
Samuel Alito
Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr. is an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He was nominated by President George W. Bush and has served on the court since January 31, 2006....
; the investigation into the disclosure of the identity of Valerie Plame
Valerie Plame
Valerie Elise Plame Wilson , known as Valerie Plame, Valerie E. Wilson, and Valerie Plame Wilson, is a former United States CIA Operations Officer and the author of a memoir detailing her career and the events leading up to her resignation from the CIA.-Early life :Valerie Elise Plame was born on...
, an undercover Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
operative; the trial of John Lee Malvo
Lee Boyd Malvo
Lee Boyd Malvo , is a spree killer convicted, along with John Allen Muhammad, of murders in connection with the Beltway sniper attacks, which took place in the Washington Metropolitan Area over a three-week period in October 2002...
, one of the Washington-area snipers; judicial ethics; and various aspects of the criminal justice system, notably capital punishment. He inaugurated the Sidebar column in January 2007. The column covers and considers developments in the law.
In 2005, he examined the rise in life sentences in the U.S. in a three-part series. The next year, he and two colleagues studied connections between contributions to the campaigns of justices on the Ohio Supreme Court and those justices' voting records. He was a member of the teams that examined the reporting of Jayson Blair
Jayson Blair
Jayson Blair is an American reporter formerly with The New York Times. He resigned from the newspaper in May 2003 in the wake of the discovery of plagiarism and fabrication in his stories. Since 2007 he has worked as a life coach in the field of mental health.-Background:Blair was born in...
and Judith Miller
Judith Miller (journalist)
Judith Miller is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, formerly of the New York Times Washington bureau. Her coverage of Iraq's alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction program both before and after the 2003 invasion generated much controversy...
at The New York Times.
Liptak was born in Stamford
Stamford, Connecticut
Stamford is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the city is 122,643, making it the fourth largest city in the state and the eighth largest city in New England...
, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
. He first joined The New York Times as a copyboy in 1984, after graduation from Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, where he was an editor of the Yale Daily News
Yale Daily News
The Yale Daily News is an independent student newspaper published by Yale University students in New Haven, Connecticut since January 28, 1878...
, with a degree in English. In addition to clerical work and fetching coffee, he assisted the reporter M. A. Farber
M. A. Farber
Myron A. Farber is an American newspaper reporter for The New York Times, whose investigations into the deaths of several patients at an Oradell, New Jersey hospital led to the murder trial of Dr. Mario Jascalevich, a physician at the hospital who was alleged to have used a powerful muscle...
in covering the trial of a libel suit brought by General William Westmoreland
William Westmoreland
William Childs Westmoreland was a United States Army General, who commanded US military operations in the Vietnam War at its peak , during the Tet Offensive. He adopted a strategy of attrition against the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the North Vietnamese Army. He later served as...
against CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
.
He returned to Yale for a law degree, graduating from Yale Law School
Yale Law School
Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...
in 1988. During law school, Liptak worked as a summer clerk in The New York Times Company
The New York Times Company
The New York Times Company is an American media company best known as the publisher of its namesake, The New York Times. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. has served as Chairman of the Board since 1997. It is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City....
's legal department. After graduating, he spent four years at Cahill Gordon & Reindel
Cahill Gordon & Reindel
Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP is a prominent New York-based international law firm with offices in New York, Washington, D.C. and London...
, a New York City law firm, as a litigation associate specializing in First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
matters.
In 1992, he returned to The New York Times Company's legal department, spending a decade advising The New York 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 twenty leading newspaper professionals under the age of forty. In 1999, he received the New York Press Club
New York Press Club
The New York Press Club is a membership organization of and for journalists and media professionals in the New York City metropolitan area. The club is a private, non-profit corporation and is not affiliated with any government office or agency and does not advocate or participate in any political...
's John Peter Zenger
John Peter Zenger
John Peter Zenger was a German-American printer, publisher, editor, and journalist in New York City. He was a defendant in a landmark legal case in American jurisprudence that determined that truth was a defense against charges of libel and "laid the foundation for American press freedom."-...
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.
Liptak has taught media law at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is one of Columbia's graduate and professional schools. It offers three degree programs: Master of Science in journalism , Master of Arts in journalism and a Ph.D. in communications...
, UCLA School of Law
UCLA School of Law
The UCLA School of Law is the law school of the University of California, Los Angeles. It has been approved by the American Bar Association since 1950. It joined the Association of American Law Schools in 1952.- History :...
and Yale Law School.
While working as a lawyer, he wrote occasional book reviews for The New York Times and The New York Observer and contributed to other sections of The New York Times. His work has also appeared in The American Lawyer
The American Lawyer
The American Lawyer is a monthly law magazine published by ALM. It was founded in 1979 by Steven Brill. Features include the annual AmLaw 100 Survey and AmLaw 200 Survey , "The View From the Top", their annual poll of law firm chairpersons, and their "Corporate Scorecard"...
. He has written several law review articles as well, generally on First Amendment topics.
Personal life
Liptak lives in Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, with his wife, Jennifer Bitman, a veterinarian, and their children, Ivan and Katie Liptak.
External links
- Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism - faculty biographies
- New York Times biography - Adam Liptak
- Adam Liptak's New York Observer review archive
- Whelen, Ed NYT Supreme Court Coverage Under Liptak Is Most Conservative in Decades, National ReviewNational ReviewNational Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
, July 26, 2010.