Ten questions to a media lawyer

This article was originally published in the October 2023 issue of the Media Law Resource’s MediaLawLetter and is republished here with permission.

Robert Corn-Revere joined FIRE from the law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine where he was a partner for 20 years specializing in freedom of expression and communications law. Before DWT, he was a partner at Hogan & Hartson and served as legal advisor and later chief counsel to Federal Communications Commission Chairman James H. Quello. 

1. How did you get interested in law and the First Amendment?

I was interested in law because I was a high school and college debater, and coached debate in graduate school. I became interested in the First Amendment as a reporter for a local newspaper and journalism student during the Watergate era. Combining those interests seemed like a natural progression, so by the time I started law school, I knew I wanted to find a way to practice First Amendment law. 

2. What was your first legal job?

During law school, I got a job at a D.C. firm that was working on a cable TV law treatise, and they assigned me to draft an initial chapter on broadcast law. In addition to that, I was a summer associate, and then an associate, at Steptoe & Johnson.

3. What was the best career advice you got as a young lawyer?

Write briefs that sing.

4. What are some of your most memorable cases or experiences in media law?

After four years at the FCC working for Commissioner (and then Chairman) Jim Quello (a memorable experience in many ways), I was back at a private firm trying to jump-start a First Amendment practice. During the holidays while on vacation, I received a call out of the blue where the voice on the other end said, “my name is Howard Shapiro and I am General Counsel of Playboy Enterprises. I desperately need your help.” That led to several years of litigation involving a First Amendment challenge to a provision of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, culminating in a victory in the Supreme Court. That was a busy time, as all the early challenges to Internet regulations were occuring at that time, and I had a hand in some of those formative cases as well. Then came the infamous “wardrobe malfunction” where I represented CBS, and a series of cases testing the limits of the FCC’s indecency rules. Last year, I worked on a case that successfully blocked an effort to ban books in Virginia Beach, VA, a case that was memorable on various levels now that book banning is back in vogue. And I have to include the successful campaign to then-New York Governor George Pataki to grant a posthumous pardon to comedian Lenny Bruce.

5. You recently moved from Big Law to a non-profit. How do you compare the different environments? 

In private practice I represented clients whose interests were protected by the First Amendment; at FIRE my job is to help protect the First Amendment. This involves a range of things, including representing clients, but also speaking, writing, and other efforts to support not just First Amendment law, but a broader culture of free expression.

6. What do you like to do when you’re not working – any unusual hobbies?

I am a photographer and I like to bike, but those activities are not particularly unusual. For my 60th birthday I went skydiving for the first time, and at age 67 got certified for scuba diving.

7. You can throw a dinner party with a few comedians past or present. Who do you invite?

Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Jonathan Winters, Dave Chappelle, and Robin Williams. And if you expand the category to include comedy magicians, I would throw in my friends Penn & Teller.

8. Your recent book "The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder" examines the history of censorship in America. Does that history shed any light on today’s cancel culture controversies?

I think it sheds light on more than just cancel culture. What is striking is that the arguments for and against freedom of speech haven’t changed all that much in the past 150 years. What changed is that the arguments in favor of protecting speech began to prevail in the 20th century as First Amendment law evolved. Throughout this time, the various moral panics that drove demands for censorship have followed almost identical patterns, regardless of whether the target was dime novels, jazz music, comic books, rock and roll, broadcast indecency, rap, violent depictions on TV, video games, or the most current boogeyman, social media. As legal protections for speech have grown stronger, the proponents of regulation have gone to great lengths to characterize their efforts as something other than censorship. They try to claim they are not regulating online speech, for example, but only the ways in which it is delivered. These are not efforts to suppress speech they say, but public health measures. Same as it ever was.

9. What’s a book, movie, song, podcast or other form of entertainment you’ve enjoyed over the past few months.

Podcast: The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling.

Streaming video: The UK TV series Line of Duty; also Arcane: League of Legends

Book: The Constitution of Knowledge by Jonathan Rauch (nonfiction); Under Tiberius by Nick Toshes (fiction)

Film: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

10. FIRE goes out for karaoke night – what are you singing?

I wouldn’t torture my colleagues with my singing voice. But if forced, probably Werewolves of London or Excitable Boy by Warren Zevon.