Client Advocacy

Working on behalf of non-profit media collective Atlanta Community Press Collective (“ACPC”), the University of Georgia School of Law’s First Amendment Clinic successfully asserted Georgia’s Shield Law to defeat Non-Party Document Requests that ACPC received from Blackhall Real Estate Phase II, LLC (“Blackhall”), a defendant in South River Watershed Alliance v. Dekalb County and Blackhall Real Estate Phase II, LLC; Civil Action No. 21CV1931 (DeKalb County Superior Court, Georgia).

After receiving a demand letter from the University of Georgia School of Law’s First Amendment Clinic, the Burke County Sheriff’s Office restored Mrs. Traci Hollingsworth’s access to their official Facebook page from which she had been blocked for over two years.

Working on behalf of freelance journalists Hilke Schellmann and Clara McMichael, the University of Georgia School of Law’s First Amendment Clinic has shaken loose documents from Atlanta Public Schools (“APS”) that the journalists had been seeking for more than eight months.

The University of Georgia School of Law’s First Amendment Clinic, in partnership with the ACLU of Alabama, successfully negotiated a permit for Tri-State Expo (TSE)’s 2022 annual Juneteenth Celebration parade in downtown Dothan, Alabama.

During the summer of 2021, residents of Greensboro, Georgia contacted the First Amendment Clinic about the public comment period at city council meetings having been indefinitely shut down in response to community members expressing their views about a controversial city official.

In July 2021 the First Amendment Clinic, in partnership with the National Homelessness Law Center, wrote to Augusta-Richmond County officials urging them to reject a proposed expansion of the County’s panhandling ordinance and to repeal the existing ordinance due to its unconstitutional targeting of protected speech.

The First Amendment Clinic is representing independent journalist Robin Kemp of the Clayton Crescent in challenging Open Meetings Act violations by the City of Forest Park, Georgia.

The First Amendment Clinic sent a letter of concern to the Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections regarding its failure to provide effective public notice for a special called meeting in March 2020.