James C. Goodale (born July 27, 1933) was the vice president and general counsel for The New York Times and, later, the Times' vice chairman.
He is the author of Fighting for the Press: the Inside Story of the Pentagon Papers and Other Battles. The book was named twice as the best non-fiction book of 2013 by Alan Rusbridger, editor in chief of The Guardian, and Alan Clanton, editor of the online Thursday Review. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit cited "Fighting for the Press" in its decision May 7, 2015, limiting the controversial National Security Agency (NSA) domestic phone monitoring program.
He represented the Times in four of its United States Supreme Court cases, including Branzburg v. Hayes in which the Times intervened on behalf of its reporter Earl Caldwell. The other cases were New York Times v. Sullivan, New York Times Co. v. United States (the Pentagon Papers case), and New York Times Co. v. Tasini. He was the leading force behind the Times''' decision to publish the Pentagon Papers in 1971.
After the Times' outside counsel, Lord Day & Lord, advised the Times against publishing classified information and quit when the United States Justice Department threatened to sue the paper to stop publication, Goodale led his own legal team and directed the strategy that resulted in winning the Supreme Court case of New York Times Co. v. United States.
He has been called "the father of the reporter's privilege" because of his interpretation of the Branzburg case in the Hastings Law Journal. This led to the establishment of a reporter's privilege to protect sources in most states and federal circuits. Goodale created the specialty of First Amendment law among commercial lawyers. From 1972 to 2007, he established and chaired an annual Communications Law Seminar at the Practising Law Institute. This led to the creation of a First Amendment Bar. He continues to serve as the seminar's chairman emeritus.
After he left The New York Times in 1980, he joined the law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP in New York City. there he founded a corporate group and a litigation group dealing with media, intellectual property, communications, and the First Amendment. These groups have represented many well-known U.S. communication entities including the New York Times, CBS, and NBC.
Since 1977 he has taught First Amendment and Communications law at Yale, New York University and Fordham law schools and has authored over 200 articles in publications such as The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and the Stanford Law Review. Columbia Journalism Review has listed James Goodale as one of 200 who shaped New York Media. He was named by Time magazine in 1974 as one of the rising leaders in the United States.
Goodale was the recipient of the "Champion of the First Amendment Award," from the American Bar Association Forum in February 2014.
On May 5, 2015, PEN America awarded the 2015 PEN/Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award to the French satirical weekly, Charlie Hebdo. Many of that magazines' editors had been killed in a homegrown jihadist terrorist attack.
The award caused an international controversy as to whether it should have been given to Charlie Hebdo. Over 200 writers signed a protest against the award and many withdrew from the PEN dinner at which the award was given. In reply to attack on the award given by him and his wife, Goodale said, "the award is not for what is said. It's for the right to say it. In this case, journalists got killed for what they said. They should be honored, and my wife and I are extremely proud to do that." Victor Navasky, publisher of The Nation wrote an article titled "Why I Support PEN’s Courage Award to ‘Charlie Hebdo’"
Education and early career
Goodale was born July 27, 1933, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His mother, a college professor, was the daughter of the Shakespearean scholar Oscar James Campbell Jr. Goodale graduated from the Pomfret School and was an inductee in the Pomfret School Alumni Association’s Athletic Hall of Fame. He graduated Yale University in 1955, which he attended on the William Brinckerhoff Jackson Scholarship and where he was a member of Elihu. At Yale, he played on the baseball and hockey teams. In 2015 he was Recipient of the "George H.W. Bush '48 Lifetime of Leadership Award." He received his Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School in 1958, which he attended on a National Honor Scholarship.