Martin Garbus
Encyclopedia
Martin Garbus is an American attorney. He has tried cases throughout the country involving constitutional, criminal, copyright
, and intellectual property
law. He has appeared before the United States Supreme Court as well as trial and appellate courts throughout the United States
. He has written numerous briefs that have been submitted to the United States Supreme Court; a number of which have resulted in changes in the law on a nationwide basis. He is the author of six books and over 50 articles.
in 1951. He earned his undergraduate degree at Hunter College
in 1955 and his Juris Doctor from New York University Law School. He thereafter attended Columbia University
as a Master’s Candidate in economics, at The New School
as a Master’s Candidate in English and at New York University Law School as a Master’s Candidate in tax law. He wrote for the New York University
Law Review. He was admitted to the United States Supreme Court Bar in 1963.
Mr. Garbus has won several awards for his work:
, the Bar Associations of New York, Washington and Los Angeles on a variety of topics including trial practice, jury selection, copyright and the Supreme Court. Mr. Garbus debated former Independent Prosecutor Kenneth Starr at venues across the country. He served as a commentator for NBC
, ABC
, CBS
, PBS
, CNN
, Fox News, Court TV
, Time
and Newsweek
. Martin Garbus blogs for the Huffington Posthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-garbus.
Mr. Garbus is featured in the HBO documentary Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech, which is directed by his daughter Liz Garbus
.
Center on Social Policy and Law while he taught law at Columbia. He was Director Counsel of the Roger Baldwin Foundation of the ACLU, Legal Director and Associate Director of the ACLU, as well as Director of the Lawyers Committee to Defend Civil Rights, ran for political office in 1974, formed his own law firm, Frankfurt Garbus, in 1977, and in 2003 became a partner at Davis & Gilbert. He subsequently taught at an adjunct professor at Yale Law School
, and has lectured at many law schools, including Harvard University Law School and Stanford Law School
. A Fulbright Scholar, he taught in 2005 and 2006 at Tsinghua and Renmin law schools in Beijing, China. At the same time he taught judges, government officials and drafters of China’s new laws.
, Czechoslovakia
, Poland
, China
, and Rwanda
as a consultant on constitutional, media and communications law. Recently, the government of China hired Mr. Garbus to help address the problems posed by digital piracy. He represented dissidents Václav Havel
, Nelson Mandela
and Andrei Sakharov
. In 2004, he was appointed advisor to the Chinese team responsible for the creation of China's intellectual property laws.
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
, and intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
law. He has appeared before the United States Supreme Court as well as trial and appellate courts throughout the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. He has written numerous briefs that have been submitted to the United States Supreme Court; a number of which have resulted in changes in the law on a nationwide basis. He is the author of six books and over 50 articles.
Personal
Martin Garbus graduated from the Bronx High School of ScienceBronx High School of Science
The Bronx High School of Science is a specialized New York City public high school often considered the premier science magnet school in the United States. Founded in 1938, it is now located in the Bedford Park section of the Bronx...
in 1951. He earned his undergraduate degree at Hunter College
Hunter College
Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...
in 1955 and his Juris Doctor from New York University Law School. He thereafter attended Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
as a Master’s Candidate in economics, at The New School
The New School
The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by progressive New York academics, and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University...
as a Master’s Candidate in English and at New York University Law School as a Master’s Candidate in tax law. He wrote for the New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
Law Review. He was admitted to the United States Supreme Court Bar in 1963.
Awards and recognition
The Guardian called Martin Garbus “one of the world’s finest trial lawyers” and the “founding partner of one of America’s most prestigious law firms”. In 2007, Business Week called him "legendary," “a ferocious lawyer who has received numerous media citations as one of America’s leading trial lawyers” and a "ferocious litigator". Time Magazine named him "legendary, one of the best trial lawyers in the country." Fortune magazine called him, "One of the nation's premier First Amendment attorneys," and "legendary," Reuters called him a “famed lawyer” while other media have called him "America's most prominent First Amendment lawyer" with an "extraordinarily diverse practice" and "one of the country's top ten litigators." Super Lawyers Magazine designated him as a “Superlawyer.” New York magazine and Los Angeles magazine, over the last twelve years have named him both as one of America’s best trial lawyers, and one of America’s best intellectual property lawyers.Mr. Garbus has won several awards for his work:
- PEN USA First Amendment Award of Honor, 2007,
- New York University Law Alumni Achievement Award, 2004,
- Hunter College Law Alumni Achievement Award, 2005
- Hunter College Hall of Fame, 2005
- Marquis Who's Who in America (2006 & prior years)
- Marquis Who's Who in American Law (2006 & prior years)
- Civil Liberties Union Award, 2007
Notable cases
Mr. Garbus was involved in the following notable cases:- Argued in the Supreme Court after a trial in Alabama, Mr. Garbus won, in King v. Smith (392 U.S. 309), a unanimous 9-0 decision striking down laws in 14 states on the grounds they violated the Constitution. These laws had disenfranchised one million people
- Served as co-counsel in Ashton v. Kentucky (384 U.S. 195), a Supreme Court decision that struck down all criminal libel laws in the United States
- Served as co-counsel in Jacobellis v. Ohio (378 U.S. 184), where the Supreme Court held unconstitutional an Ohio statute seeking to regulate motion pictures and, for the first time, defined the term “national community standards.”
- Represented Lenny BruceLenny BruceLeonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...
in a high profile criminal case in New York, successfully asserting a First AmendmentFirst Amendment to the United States ConstitutionThe 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...
defense against an obscenity charge. - Represented Don ImusDon ImusJohn Donald "Don" Imus, Jr. is an American radio host, humorist, philanthropist and writer. His nationally-syndicated talk show, Imus in the Morning, is broadcast throughout the United States by Citadel Media and relayed on television by the Fox Business Network.-Personal life:Imus was born in...
when he was fired by CBSCBSCBS 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...
by asserting a First Amendment defense. - Represented Viking PressViking PressViking Press is an American publishing company owned by the Penguin Group, which has owned the company since 1975. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim...
and Peter MatthiessenPeter MatthiessenPeter Matthiessen is a two-time National Book Award-winning American novelist and non-fiction writer, as well as an environmental activist...
in one of the longest and most bitterly fought libel cases in American history that led to the development of libel precedent favoring journalists and publishers. Governor William Janklow filed a libel suit in South Dakota and FBI agents filed suit in Minnesota claiming they were libeled by In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (see Peter Matthiessen#Crazy Horse lawsuits). The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of the $450 million case and the Supreme Court refused to reverse it. - Represented sixteen defendants in murder cases, stopping their executions, while chairing the Committee to Abolish Capital Punishment.
- Represented civil rights leader Cesar ChavezCésar ChávezCésar Estrada Chávez was an American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers ....
in free speech, commercial and criminal cases in California and elsewhere in the United States, all in support of the United Farm WorkersUnited Farm WorkersThe United Farm Workers of America is a labor union created from the merging of two groups, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee led by Filipino organizer Larry Itliong, and the National Farm Workers Association led by César Chávez...
. - Represented criminal defendants in the French Connection criminal cases in New York Federal Court.
- Sued Eminem in copyright suit on behalf of French composer Jacques Loussier under New York Federal Court.
- Represented author Pia Pera in a copyright dispute with the estate of Vladimir Nabakov.
- Represented author Terry McMillan in commercial suit in San Francisco Federal Court to set aside a settlement agreement.
- Other notable clients include Nelson MandelaNelson MandelaNelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
, Andrei SakharovAndrei SakharovAndrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident and human rights activist. He earned renown as the designer of the Soviet Union's Third Idea, a codename for Soviet development of thermonuclear weapons. Sakharov was an advocate of civil liberties and civil reforms in the...
, Václav HavelVáclav HavelVáclav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
, Samuel BeckettSamuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
and Al PacinoAl PacinoAlfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...
. - Garbus is representing songwriter and pianist, Oksana Grigorieva against actor Mel Gibson. Grigorieva alleges that Gibson beat her during their relationship and then defamed her in the media. The case has garnered significant publicity.
Public speaking
Mr. Garbus has participated in lectures and debates before the American Bar AssociationAmerican Bar Association
The American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...
, the Bar Associations of New York, Washington and Los Angeles on a variety of topics including trial practice, jury selection, copyright and the Supreme Court. Mr. Garbus debated former Independent Prosecutor Kenneth Starr at venues across the country. He served as a commentator for NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
, ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
, 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...
, PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
, CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, Fox News, Court TV
Court TV
truTV is an American cable television network owned by Turner Broadcasting, a subsidiary of Time Warner. The network launched as Court TV in 1991, changing to truTV in 2008...
, Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
and Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
. Martin Garbus blogs for the Huffington Posthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-garbus.
Mr. Garbus is featured in the HBO documentary Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech, which is directed by his daughter Liz Garbus
Liz Garbus
Liz Garbus is an award-winning documentary film director and producer. Her most recent film, Bobby Fischer Against the World, opened the Premiere Documentary Section of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, reserved for master American documentary filmmakers...
.
Early career and legal scholarship
After law school and after two years in the United States Army, he clerked for Émile Zola Berman, an internationally-known trial lawyer, and Ephraim London, a Supreme Court advocate and Constitutional lawyer who won every one of the nine cases he argued before the Supreme Court. He was in 1966 Co-Director of the Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
Center on Social Policy and Law while he taught law at Columbia. He was Director Counsel of the Roger Baldwin Foundation of the ACLU, Legal Director and Associate Director of the ACLU, as well as Director of the Lawyers Committee to Defend Civil Rights, ran for political office in 1974, formed his own law firm, Frankfurt Garbus, in 1977, and in 2003 became a partner at Davis & Gilbert. He subsequently taught at an adjunct professor at 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...
, and has lectured at many law schools, including Harvard University Law School and Stanford Law School
Stanford Law School
Stanford Law School is a graduate school at Stanford University located in the area known as the Silicon Valley, near Palo Alto, California in the United States. The Law School was established in 1893 when former President Benjamin Harrison joined the faculty as the first professor of law...
. A Fulbright Scholar, he taught in 2005 and 2006 at Tsinghua and Renmin law schools in Beijing, China. At the same time he taught judges, government officials and drafters of China’s new laws.
International work
Martin Garbus has worked for the governments of the former Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, and Rwanda
Rwanda
Rwanda or , officially the Republic of Rwanda , is a country in central and eastern Africa with a population of approximately 11.4 million . Rwanda is located a few degrees south of the Equator, and is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
as a consultant on constitutional, media and communications law. Recently, the government of China hired Mr. Garbus to help address the problems posed by digital piracy. He represented dissidents Václav Havel
Václav Havel
Václav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
, Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
and Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident and human rights activist. He earned renown as the designer of the Soviet Union's Third Idea, a codename for Soviet development of thermonuclear weapons. Sakharov was an advocate of civil liberties and civil reforms in the...
. In 2004, he was appointed advisor to the Chinese team responsible for the creation of China's intellectual property laws.
Books
- China's Legal System (Seven Stories Press, expected publication 2010)
- The Ten Techniques of Torture (Seven Stories Press, expected publication 2009)
- The Next 25 Years: How the Supreme Court Will Make You Forget the Meaning of Words Like Privacy, Equality and Freedom" (Seven Stories Press 2007)
- Courting Disaster: The Supreme Court and the Unmaking of America Law (Times Books, New York, 2002; Times Books softcover, 2003)
- Tough Talk: How I Fought For Writers, Comics, Bigots, and the American Way , introduction by David Halberstam (Random House-Times Books, 1998, Times Books softcover, 1999)
- Traitors and Heroes (Athenaeum, 1987; Random House softcover, 1988)
- Ready for the Defense (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1971; Avon softcover, 1972, and Carroll & Graf reprint, 1995)
Appearances in Films
- Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech, directed by Liz GarbusLiz GarbusLiz Garbus is an award-winning documentary film director and producer. Her most recent film, Bobby Fischer Against the World, opened the Premiere Documentary Section of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, reserved for master American documentary filmmakers...
- The Ruling ClassThe Ruling ClassThe Ruling Class is a 1972 British black comedy film. It is an adaptation of Peter Barnes' satirical stage play which tells the story of a paranoid schizophrenic British nobleman who inherits a peerage. The film costars Alastair Sim, William Mervyn, Coral Browne, Harry Andrews, Carolyn Seymour,...
directed by Lewis LaphamLewis LaphamLewis Henry Lapham was an American entrepreneur who made a fortune consolidating smaller business in the leather industry. He was also one of the founders of Texaco Oil Company.... - This Film Is Not Yet RatedThis Film Is Not Yet RatedThis Film is Not Yet Rated is a 2006 independent documentary film about the Motion Picture Association of America's rating system and its effect on American culture, directed by Kirby Dick and produced by Eddie Schmidt. It premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and was released limited on...
directed by Kirby DickKirby DickKirby Dick is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor. He is best known for directing documentary films. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature for directing Twist of Faith...
discussing the Motion Picture Association film code - Lenny Bruce: Swear to Tell the Truth directed by Robert Weide
- The First Amendment Project: No Joking, directed and written by Bob BalabanBob BalabanRobert Elmer "Bob" Balaban is an American actor, author and director.-Personal life:Balaban was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Eleanor and Elmer Balaban, who owned several movie theatres and later was a pioneer in cable television...
- Conversation: Peter Matthiessen, PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
, April 2009 - Frankie and Johnny (1991 film), directed by Garry Marshall
- Dear God, directed by Garry Marshall