"Of the Press": Revisiting the Rights and Responsibilities of Journalists on the World Stage

Dr. Peter Coe

Dr. Peter Coe is an Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham, UK.

Dr. Peter Coe’s primary research interests are: (i) the changing nature of journalism, and how this impacts on free speech, press freedom and regulation, and the concepts of privacy and reputation; (ii) defamation, including the protection of corporate reputation; and (iii) media power and plurality, the role the media plays within society and its impact on democracy. His work in these areas has been published in leading journals such as Legal Studies, the University of Melbourne's Media & Arts Law Review, the Journal of Media Law, the Journal of Business Law and Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, amongst others, and his monograph, Media Freedom in the Age of Citizen Journalism, was published by Edward Elgar Publishing in 2021. He is the co-editor, with Professor Paul Wragg, of Landmark Cases in Privacy Law, which was published by Hart in 2023.

Lauren Gailey

Lauren Gailey is an Assistant Professor of Law at Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University. 

Lauren Gailey teaches and writes on subjects related to federal and state constitutional law and procedural law. She had a successful career as an appellate lawyer, first at Jones Day Pittsburgh (2013–16) and then in Winston & Strawn’s Washington, DC office (2018–25).  She analyzed legal issues, drafted briefs, and presented oral argument in high-profile, high-stakes matters in courts across the country.  Career highlights include briefing and second-chairing oral argument in a case before the United States Supreme Court (resulting in a 9–0 victory); obtaining a series of wins for service members living with HIV in equal protection challenges to military policies; and arguing and winning a Fifth Circuit appeal worth nine figures.

Uta Kohl

Uta Kohl is Professor of Law and Technology at Southampton Law School.

Her research interests have been broad ranging, mostly concerning governance questions of the internet - its territoriality, dominant corporate actors, its building blocks (like personal data) and its technologies (like predictive algorithms). She is interested in the intersections of related legal regimes (e.g. private and public international law; privacy and data protection), comparative law, and critical legal readings of developments in the law-and-technology field.  

Lee Levine  — Keynote Speaker

Lee Levine is a retired Ballard Spahr First Amendment Litigator who represented journalists and news organizations for more than four decades.

Lee Levine has represented media clients in libel, invasion of privacy, reporter’s privilege, access, copyright, and related First Amendment cases for four decades. In the United States Supreme Court, he has argued for the media defendants in Harte-Hanks Communications, Inc. v. Connaughton and Bartnicki v. Vopper. Lee also has litigated in the courts of more than 20 states and the District of Columbia and has appeared in most federal courts of appeal and in the highest courts of several states.

 Dr. Roy Peled 

Roy Peled is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at the Haim Striks School of Law at the College of Management Academic Studies (COLMAN). 

He holds an LL.B. from the Interdisciplenary Center and an LL.M. and PhD from the Tel-Aviv University Buchman Faculty of Law. His doctoral Thesis dealt with legal mechanisms to promote fairness in the media and was written under the supervision of professros Daphne Bara-Erez and Michael Birnhack.

Dr. Peled taught at Columbia Law School as an associate-in-law in 2011-2013 and at UC Berkeley 2019-2021

He served as the Chairperson (and earlier as director) of the Movement for Freedom of Information in Israel, and is a board member of the movement. He is a member of the public councils of HaShomer HaTzair and of Yesh-Din – Volunteers for Human.

Orly Ravid 

Orly Ravid is the Associate Dean of the Biederman Entertainment, Media, and Sports Law Institute at Southwestern Law School.

Orly Ravid is formerly Senior Counsel at TUBI (a FOX Corporation subsidiary). After graduating from Southwestern's SCALE program, she was an entertainment attorney (Of Counsel) at Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP (MSK) and continued running The Film Collaborative (TFC).  She returned to Southwestern in November 2018 as Director of the Biederman Entertainment and Media Law Institute and as an Associate Professor of Law.  Professor Ravid has over 20 years of experience in independent film (spanning distribution, sales/licensing, development, production, and business affairs).  

Rute Saraiva 

Rute Saraiva is an Assistant Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Lisbon, Faculty of Law.

She is a lecturer and author of over fifty publications, especially on economics and environmental law, economic analysis of law, psychology and law and financial regulation. Her area of expertise is Economic law, Environmental law and Public finance. 

Dr. Stephanie Schiedermair

Dr. Schiedermair is the Chair of European Law, International Law and Public Law at the University of Leipzig.

Stephanie Schiedermair has been professor of European, International and Public Law at the Law Faculty since 2014. She is head of the master program "Law of the European Integration." Since 2017 she has been the international exchange and Erasmus coordinator of the faculty. She studied Law, German Philogy, Political Science and History in Dresden and Mainz. She received her doctorate as well as her habilitation at Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz. In her academic teaching and research, Professor Schiedermair focuses on Public Law as part of multilevel governance. Research stays took her to Yale Law School and Monash University (Melbourne). She is Liaison Officer of the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes). Professor Schiedermair is a member of the editorial board of the Leipziger Schriften zum Völkerrecht, Europarecht und ausländischen öffentlichen Recht and the European Review of Digital Administration & Law.

Russell Weaver

Professor Russell L. Weaver graduated cum laude from the University of Missouri School of Law in 1978. He was a member of the Missouri Law Review, was elected to the Order of the Coif, and won the Judge Roy Harper Prize. After law school, Professor Weaver was associated with Watson, Ess, Marshall & Enggas in Kansas City, Missouri, and worked for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of General Counsel in Washington, D.C.

Professor Weaver began teaching at the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law in 1982, and holds the rank of Professor of Law and Distinguished University Scholar. He teaches Constitutional Law, Advanced Constitutional Law, Remedies, Administrative Law, Criminal Law, and Criminal Procedure. He has received the Brandeis School of Law's awards for teaching, scholarship, and service, including the Brown Todd & Heyburn Fellowship. He has been awarded the President's Award (University of Louisville) for Outstanding Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity in the Field of Social Science, the President's Award for Outstanding Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity in the Career Achievement Category, and the President's Award for Distinguished Service. He is the Executive Director and past president of the Southeastern Conference of the Association of American Law Schools. He is an Honorary Associate of Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia).

Paul Wragg

Paul Wragg is a Professor of Media Law at the University of Leeds, UK. 

Paul Wragg is a Professor of Media Law who specializes in the theory of free speech and its intersection with competing rights in privacy, reputation, employment, and social media. His work focuses on the tensions between individual and press rights to free expression and the private or horizontal rights that often conflict with them. This theme is the subject of his forthcoming 2025 monograph with Hart, Free Speech Theory: A Radical Restatement.

He has written extensively on privacy and press freedom, including his 2020 Hart monograph on the compatibility of compulsory press regulation with press freedom. He has also co-edited several significant collections: with Peter Coe on landmark cases in privacy law, and with András Koltay on global perspectives on press regulation and on comparative privacy and defamation law.

Zsolt Zodi

Zsolt Zodi is a Professor at Ludovika University.

Zsolt Zodi is a Professor at Ludovika University in Hungary whose research explores legal technologies, regulatory issues, and the legal theory of the information society, artificial intelligence, and internet platforms. He teaches and lectures widely on the regulation of information society, digital platforms, and AI. His current work includes empirical studies of legal texts, using methods such as text mining and citation analysis.