2026 London Conference: Speaker & Faculty Bios
Keynote Address
The Rt Hon Lord Sumption (Jonathan Sumption) was a Justice on the UK Supreme Court from 2012 to 2018. He was appointed to the Supreme Court directly from the bar, without having been a full-time judge. His reputation as a barrister was formidable with colleagues describing his courtroom talents as “amazing”, “brilliant”, and “titanic,” according to a profile in The Guardian. On the Supreme Court, he was in the majority in a landmark separation of powers decision holding that the Prime Minister could not pull Britain out of the EU without the approval from Parliament (the prorogation case). He retired at the mandatory age of 70 in December 2018, later serving briefly as a judge on Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal before resigning that post in 2024 stating that the city was “slowly becoming a totalitarian state” and judges are being compromised by an “impossible political environment created by China.”
Since leaving the bench, Sumption has built a second, very public career as a commentator on law, politics, and constitutional order — now better known to general audiences for this than for his judicial record. In his books Trials of the State: Law and the Decline of Politics (2019) and Law in a Time of Crisis (2021), he argues that UK courts and the European Court of Human Rights have undermined the political processes by ruling on issues that should be decided by elected officials. His public profile rose during the pandemic, when he became one of the most prominent civil-libertarian critics of British lockdown policy, calling it “the greatest invasion of personal liberty in our history” and appearing frequently in print and broadcast media to make the case against it.
His most recent book, The Challenges of Democracy: And the Rule of Law (Profile Books; hardback February 2025, paperback December 2025), continues his public-intellectual project directly. It’s a collection of essays diagnosing what he presents as a global crisis of democratic governance — covering the fragility of international law, the suppression of democratic activism in Hong Kong, the complexities and limits of human-rights legislation, threats to freedom of speech, and ways in which governments circumvent legal constraints on their power.
Sumption is also a respected medievalist historian, known for his five-volume history of the Hundred Years’ War. The most recent volume Triumph and Illusion was published in 2023.
Media in the Cross Hairs
Gavin Millar KC is a barrister at Matrix in London. He has specialised in defending the right to freedom of expression for over thirty years, and in many different contexts. Often his cases involve internet expression. Recent cases include: Defending Christopher Steele in privacy and libel proceedings brought against him by persons named in his so called “Trump Dossier”, published online by Buzzfeed in 2017. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism v UK, a decision of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights which established rights to protect confidential journalistic material against the government data harvesting identified by Edward Snowden. Arlene Foster v Dr Christian Jesson in which a court in Belfast awarded £125,000 to the former First Minister of Northern Ireland for a single defamatory tweet. Gavin is also an election law expert, and he recently advised Verbatim Investigations on its reporting about potentially illegal foreign donations to the Reform party.
Professor RonNell Andersen Jones is a University Distinguished Professor and the Lee E. Teitelbaum Chair in Law at the University of Utah. A former newspaper reporter and editor, Professor Andersen Jones is a First Amendment scholar who researches and writes on legal issues affecting the press and on the intersection between media and the courts, with an emphasis on the United States Supreme Court. Her work is particularly concerned with the role of the press in American democracy and the underdeveloped doctrines for identifying and safeguarding constitutionally protectable press functions in a changing media and political landscape. She is a widely cited national expert on newsgathering rights and commenter on the free-speech dynamics in social media discourse. Her scholarly work on questions of press access, the constitutional protections in media defamation suits, and the role of the press as a check on government has appeared in dozens of books and journals.
Gideon Rachman is Chief Foreign Affairs Commentator for the Financial Times. He became chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times in July 2006. He joined the FT after a 15-year career at The Economist, which included spells as a foreign correspondent in Brussels, Washington and Bangkok. He also edited The Economist’s business and Asia sections. His particular interests include American foreign policy, the European Union and globalisation.
Trump v. BBC
Clive Coleman is a senior partner at Maltin PR in London. From 2010 to 2020 he was the BBC’s Legal Correspondent – the face and voice of legal coverage and analysis across the BBC news output on radio, television and the website. He covered a vast range of domestic and international legal stories and issues including 2019’s momentous Supreme Court prorogation case, Brexit, the growing courts backlog, the Barclay brothers ‘Ritz’ dispute, GDPR, the VW emissions scandal, phone hacking, Sir Cliff Richard v BBC, and the Hillsborough tragedy inquests.
He broke many stories and secured exclusive interviews, including with Lady Hale on her departure from the Supreme Court, Lord Reed on his appointment as President, John Crilly the ex-offender who fought the London Bridge attacker Usman Khan, and many more. He won numerous journalism awards in the role, most recently the 2019 Bar Council Reporting Award for his coverage of the prorogation case. Clive is a qualified barrister, has also received an honorary doctorate of Laws, and was made an honorary Bencher of the Middle Temple in recognition of his legal journalism.
AI 2030
David Burgess is Co-CEO of ClearDraft. Launched in 2026, ClearDraft pairs AI‑driven media‑law analysis with expert human review, surfacing defamation, privacy, and contempt risks early so teams can focus on building impactful creative and meaningful reporting—not wrestling with compliance. David is a media lawyer with 25 years’ experience, including senior roles at Netflix, The Independent, Evening Standard, and Hearst Magazines UK. He advises on defamation, copyright, privacy, and compliance risks.
Dean Levitan is a partner in the Melbourne office of Minter Ellison. He specializes in complex and high-stakes matters relating to defamation, privacy, reputational issues, regulatory investigations and corporate crime. He represent some of Australia’s leading media companies, including Nine Entertainment Co., Private Media and Capital Brief, plus major international publishers including The New York Times, CNN, the Associated Press and Bloomberg. His practice increasingly extends to AI-related regulatory and disputes work, advising a frontier AI company on risks arising from AI-generated publications and on its engagement with regulatory inquiries and Royal Commissions.
Raoul Lumb is a partner at Simons Muirhead & Burton in the Technology, Corporate & Commercial teams. He is a specialist commercial technology lawyer who helps his clients with a wide range of contractual, data protection and intellectual property issues. His clients range from start-ups to listed multinational companies and include software developers, digital agencies, virtual reality producers, crowdfunding platforms and online gaming services.Raoul has experience of representing FinTech clients and negotiating software licencing deals with most of the world’s major banks as well as representing clients in negotiations with European manufacturing companies and research institutions – including advising on the supply of robotics hardware to the European Organization for Nuclear Research (“CERN”).Raoul regularly appears on the BBC as an expert commentator on technology issues.
Matthew L. Schafer is a partner at Jassy Vick Carolan. He advises and defends news and entertainment clients in content-related matters. He represents clients across all media. His practice spans the full lifecycle of content, from advising on routine editorial, production, and newsgathering matters to litigating complex defamation, privacy, and copyright claims. He also litigates for access to public records and defends against subpoenas for newsgathering materials in state, federal, and military courts. And, he counsels clients on other sensitive issues, including responding to search warrants, grand jury investigations, and the arrest of journalists in the field. Matt is also a recognized authority on press freedom, having been published by Oxford University Press, the Journal of Free Speech Law, and the Federal Communications Law Journal.
Ethan Wong is a Product Counsel at Anthropic where he counsels consumer and enterprise offerings. He has experience counseling a variety of multimodal, agentic, and features specific to a variety of regulated sectors; responding to litigation and regulatory requests; building compliance programs; and coordinating across company stakeholders. He has a deep knowledge of copyright/trademark, privacy, consumer protection, content legal issues, and AI reuglations as well as a grasp of the AI industry and the businesses it serves. Before Anthropic, he was a Product Counsel at Google and Google DeepMind.
Based on a True Story: Comparative Legal Issues in Documentaries and Fact-Based Programs
Stephanie S. Abrutyn is counsel at Dentons in the New York and Washington, D.C. offices. She regularly provides strategic advice and handles sensitive claims, complex litigation, and regulatory and compliance issues in a wide range of matters for media and entertainment industry clients, including intellectual property, First Amendment, technology, antitrust, and commercial disputes. Prior to joining Dentons, Stephanie served as general counsel and corporate secretary for Grid, a digital media startup that launched in January 2022 and was purchased in April 2023, and as Senior Vice President and Chief Counsel, Litigation and Public Policy at WarnerMedia, where she led global litigation and oversaw public policy for WarnerMedia’s business and brands, including HBO, CNN, Turner Broadcasting and Warner Bros.
Matthew Dando is a partner at Wiggin in London. He is an experienced litigator, specializing in contentious commercial matters and publication disputes in the media industry having handled the full spectrum of media claims for national and international broadcast and print media, digital platforms and the film and television sector. He has been described in Legal 500 as “an absolute star” and the “next big defendant-focused lawyer in the sector.”
Peter Rienecker is Senior Vice President, Legal Affairs at Warner Bros. Discovery, where he is responsible for legal matters concerning the development, production, distribution and advertising of documentary programs and series, sports programming, comedy specials and talk/variety series for HBO and Max. He counsels on First Amendment and information-gathering issues, intellectual property and related labor concerns and, in particular, is responsible for pre-telecast and content review of documentary, investigative, news and sensitive fact-based programming for the network.
Clara Steinitz is a co-founder of TALIENS France. She advises clients in protecting, exploiting and enforcing their creations and innovations, trade dress and know-how for media and entertainment companies, major brand owners and designers and manufacturers of luxury goods. Her practice combines IP litigation – primarily for copyright matters, product design and trademark infringements -, with transactional and advisory work, covering notably production related agreements, content and IPR licensing and development and R&D arrangements.
Q&A with the Honourable Justice Steyn
Dame Karen Steyn, DBE is a British High Court judge. Justice Steyn is Joint Head of the Media and Communications List – the specialized docket for defamation, privacy and related claims. In 2022, she presided over the sensational celebrity “Wagatha Christie” libel trial involving the wives of two Premier League football superstars. More recently, in 2025, she presided over actor Noel Clarke’s libel trial against The Guardian. Following six weeks of trial, Justice Steyn comprehensively dismissed Clarke’s libel claim in its entirety in a 224-page judgment. She found that the Guardian’s 2021 investigation exposing allegations of sexual misconduct, groping, covert filming, and workplace bullying was substantially true and published in the public interest. Steyn was called to the bar at Middle Temple in 1995. As a barrister she practised public law, human rights and public international law at 4–5 Gray’s Inn Square and 11 King’s Bench Walk. She took silk in 2014 and was appointed a deputy High Court judge in 2016.
Guy Vassal Adams KC is a barrister at Matrix Chambers. His practice encompasses media and information law, public law, election law and sports law. He is recognised in the leading directories for defamation and privacy and for election law. He also acts as a mediator across the whole range of civil cases. He is a leading specialist in media and information law, including defamation, misuse of private information, data protection and reporting restrictions, with clients ranging from individuals to media organisations, tech companies, trades unions and NGOs. His work ranges from urgent applications through to major group litigation and from High Court trials through to appeals raising significant points of law in the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court.
Public Interest Defence in the UK and Australia
Zoe Norden is the General Counsel, Editorial for Guardian News & Media. She leads the department responsible for providing comprehensive editorial legal support and to the Guardian. Prior to joining the Guardian in 2010j, she worked in private practice advising on defamation and libel law, privacy and data protection, contempt of court and reporting restrictions, and pre-publication review.
Marlia Saunders is a partner at Thomson Geer in Sydney, Australia. She acts for Australia’s major media organisations, digital platforms, corporations and government departments in media and defamation law (including pre-publication advice and disputes), intellectual property, online safety and privacy matters, combining senior in-house experience with top-tier media law practice. Marlia led the Thomsons team in the successful defence of Network Ten in the Bruce Lehrmann defamation proceedings, one of the most high-profile defamation cases in Australian history. She was also part of the team that achieved the first successful application of Australia’s new statutory public interest defence in Al Muderis v Nine. She is currently acting for Reddit in its High Court challenge to the social media minimum age law and for X Corp in its challenge to online safety regulation against the eSafety Commissioner in the Federal Court. Marlia previously advised various News Corp Australia entities in the Dylan Voller proceedings in the High Court relating to digital intermediary liability for defamation and in contempt proceedings arising from Cardinal George Pell’s prosecution.
Anti-SLAPP Developments
Laura Lee Prather is a partner at Haynes & Boone in Austin, TX and Chair of the firm’s Media Law Practice Group. Recognized nationally and internationally in First Amendment law, Laura Lee Prather was awarded The American Lawyer’s inaugural Tony Mauro Media Lawyer Award for her tireless and successful efforts advocating for legislation to strengthen First Amendment rights, including zealous advocacy for free speech rights both at the statehouse and the courthouse. As a Fulbright Scholar, she worked with the EU to develop their Anti-SLAPP protections and continues to help implement anti-SLAPP laws in the U.S. and abroad. Board certified in Civil Appellate Law, Laura represents a broad array of clients at the trial and appellate court level in First Amendment, Anti-SLAPP, and intellectual property disputes. She represents content providers including media, entertainment, and tech companies, online and traditional publications, cable and terrestrial broadcasters, streaming media platforms, podcasts, production companies, and music and sports entities.
Charlie Holt currently works for Global Climate Legal Defense where he leads the European work of CliDef, building legal support for climate defenders across the region. This involves the direct provision of legal advice, grant-making to individuals/groups in emergency situations and building up the legal infrastructure available to climate defenders in need. Prior to joining ClifDef, Charlie worked as legal counsel for campaigns at Greenpeace International, where he led the organization’s anti-SLAPP strategy. Until 2019 his work focused on the U.S., where he worked on aggressive large-scale SLAPPs targeting Greenpeace and helped set up the anti-SLAPP coalition Protect the Protest, and since then he has been working on building SLAPP resilience in Europe through the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE).
Daniel Simons is Senior Legal Counsel for Strategic Defence at Greenpeace International’s Legal Unit, based in Copenhagen. He oversees the Legal Unit’s strategic defence work, which includes assessing risks of actions, investigations and publications, handling incoming campaign-related litigations, and protecting the rights that the organisation needs to play its watchdog role, such as freedom of expression, association and assembly. Daniel has served in the Legal Unit, with a brief hiatus, since 2008. His other experience includes working as a legal officer at Article 19, the global campaign for freedom of expression, and as legal officer freedom of assembly, expression and information at the Open Society Justice Initiative.
Dan Neidle is British tax lawyer and founder of Tax Policy Associates, a non-profit providing independent tax-policy analysis and investigative tax journalism. He has over 25 years of experience, including serving as head of tax at Clifford Chance in London. He is the lawyer/journalist at the center of the UK’s first statutory anti-SLAPP ruling. In March 2026, Mrs Justice Collins Rice ruled in favor of Neidle, issuing the first formal declaration that an £8m libel claim brought against him over his investigative tax-avoidance reporting met the statutory definition of a SLAPP under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023.
Pia Sarma is Editorial Legal Director at Times Newspapers Limited (publisher of The Times and The Sunday Times) and Deputy General Counsel at News UK. She advises editors and journalists on pre-publication legal issues, particularly for investigations, has litigated cases that expanded legal protection for public-interest journalism, and has helped establish safety protocols for journalists at The Times. Pia also Chairs the Media Lawyers’ Association in London and is a key player behind the introduction of private members’ bills in Parliament seeking the adoption of broad anti-SLAPP protection.
Prince Harry v. Associated Newspapers
Francesca Richmond is a partner at Baker & McKenzie in London. She specializes in the litigation and investigation of high value commercial and regulatory enforcement matters with a focus on class actions and mass torts litigation. Her practice spans antitrust, consumer and human rights law. She was counsel to Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail, in the phone hacking case brought against it by Prince Harry and other celebrities. Following an 11-week trial in early 2026, Mr. Justice Matthew Nicklin in July dismissed all 97 allegations brought by the claimants. In his massive 400-plus-page judgment, the judge ruled that claimants lacked concrete evidence illegality and accepted that the newspaper stories came from legitimate sources.
Breakout Sessions
Internet Regulation / Child Safety
Telha Arshad is a senior counsel for regulatory affairs at Google. He works on tech regulatory and policy issues across content, AI and consumer laws and is part of the Regulatory Affairs team and leads on regulatory engagement for online safety. He was previously in private practice, in the Public Law and Policy team at Hogan Lovells, where his practice focused on innovative tech companies facing novel and emerging regulatory issues and public law litigation, policy advocacy, regulatory investigations and parliamentary and public inquiry processes.
Minoo Blaesche is an attorney in the litigation section of Jackson Walker’s Dallas office, where her practice is focused on business and commercial litigation, including securities arbitrations, fraud, contract disputes, and media litigation. She has represented clients in industries ranging from banking to media to healthcare institutions. Minoo also brings extensive media law experience to her practice. She has defended media companies, businesses, and individuals in defamation lawsuits across the country, navigating the complex intersection of First Amendment rights and reputational interests.
Lauro Fava is a partner at Pinsent Masons in London. He is a specialist in data protection and digital regulation, advising digital platforms, media publishers, and IoT companies. His practice includes strategic product guidance and regulatory engagement, tackling complex issues like profiling, AI compliance, biometric data processing, and online child safety.
Deanna Shullman is a founding partner of Shullman & Fugate in Florida. In her media/First Amendment practice, she has defended hundreds of defamation cases in state and federal courts and is counsel of record in more than one hundred reported decisions. Deanna provides pre-broadcast and pre-publication review and newsgathering advice, offers advice concerning content and publication practices, defends against subpoenas to reporters, defamation, and privacy claims, and prosecutes actions concerning access to government records and proceedings. In her intellectual property practice, Deanna litigates copyright and trademark disputes and provides advice concerning intellectual property management and enforcement. In her commercial litigation practice, Deanna litigates commercial disputes for corporate clients of all sizes, including contract disputes, business torts and related areas.
Media Deals
Alexia Bedat is a partner at Klaris Law. She supports content creators from early deal-making stages through to development and distribution, including as clearance counsel. Her clients range from podcast and audiobook production companies to documentary filmmakers and studios. As part of her work, Alexia seeks to help founders, studio heads and producers develop their IP responsibly, keeping in mind the implications of constantly evolving technologies and emerging distribution models.
James Stewart is a partner at DLA Piper in Washington, D.C. He practices at the intersection of intellectual property, consumer protection, advertising, and entertainment law. James structures and negotiates content production and distribution agreements, endorsement agreements, intellectual property (IP) licenses and other complex commercial agreements for major consumer-facing brands, advertising and marketing agencies, sports teams, media companies, and streaming networks. He helps clients create, protect and exploit their own intellectual property or license and exploit third party intellectual property. James also advises clients on consumer protection laws and other regulations that affect how they market and sell their products and services to consumers.
Global Free Speech
Simone Lahorgue Nunes is the Founding Partner at Lahorgue Advogadas Associadas in Brazil. Previously, she implemented and was the head of the Media & Entertainment and Privacy & Data Protection Practices of a renowned Brazilian full-service law firm for 11 years. She was also General Counsel at Grupo Globo, the biggest media group in Latin America, from 1997 to 2008.
She is a professor at Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) Law School where she teaches Media & Entertainment and Privacy & Data Protection Law. Simone is the author of the books “Curso de Direito da Midia e do Entretenimento”/ Media and Entertainment Law Textbook (Quartier Latin, 2025); “Direito Autoral e Direito Antitruste” / Copyright and Antitrust Law (Elsevier, 2011) e “Os Fundamentos e o Limite do Poder Regulamentar no Âmbito do Mercado Financeiro” / The Foundations and Limits of Regulatory Power in the Financial Market (Renovar, 2000). She is a member of the Board of Equality Now since 2017, an international non-governmental organization committed to using legal advocacy to protect and promote the rights of women and girls worldwide.
Tivadar Hüttl is a Hungarian attorney-at-law specializing in media law, freedom of information, data protection, and constitutional litigation. He holds a JD from Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) and an LL.M. from the University of Cambridge. From 2013 to 2023, he served as Head of Litigation at the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU), leading major constitutional, media freedom, and civil liberties cases before Hungarian and international courts. He provided representation in landmark press-freedom cases before the European Court of Human Rights, including Szurovecz v. Hungary (App. no. 15428/16), which Strasbourg Observers voted the best ECtHR judgment of 2019. He has advised Telex.hu since its launch in 2020 and has served as its Chief Legal Counsel since 2026. In 2025, he co-founded HMP Legal Association, where he leads strategic litigation and media-law work. His most recent publication focuses on GDPR and journalism (Data Protection Weaponised).
US v. Europe: Battle of Free Speech
Robert Corn-Revere has been a First Amendment litigator for more than four decades. In 2023, he joined FIRE from the law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine where he was a partner for 20 years. Corn-Revere is a prominent writer, thinker, and advocate on free expression issues. In 2021, Cambridge University Press published his book, “The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder: The First Amendment and the Censor’s Dilemma,” which explores how free expression became a part of America’s identity.
Kate Bolger is a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine in NY. She is an experienced First Amendment and media litigator who has represented news and entertainment companies in a broad spectrum of content-related matters, ranging from investigative journalism to coverage of celebrities. In addition to defending media clients in court, Kate regularly advises newspapers, magazines, and book publishers about prepublication issues, and advises authors on contract, electronic publishing, and intellectual property matters.
Mark Stephens CBE is a consultant at Howard Kennedy specializing in international, appellate and complex litigation. His expertise includes human rights, IP, media and regulatory work, defamation, privacy, media, art and cultural property, data protection and freedom of information, trusts litigation, intellectual property and international arbitration disputes. He has undertaken some of the highest profile cases in the country and abroad. Mark has created a niche in international comparative media law and regulation. He acts in judicial reviews, Privy Council cases- Ultimate Appeal Court for parts of the Commonwealth, as well as, regulatory cases and inquiries. Mark practices before every level of court in England and Wales and also abroad before international tribunals and courts.
George Freeman is Executive Director of the Media Law Resource Center. He was most recently Of Counsel to the law firm of Jenner & Block. He is a former Assistant General Counsel of the New York Times Company, where he was at the forefront of numerous high-profile cases for the company and its affiliated businesses. George is a well-known speaker on media and First Amendment issues. He has led or participated in many media groups and is the founder and Co-chair of the American Bar Association’s Forum on Communications Law annual conference.
Dave Heller is a Deputy Director of the Media Law Resource Center. He advises lawyers and journalists on a wide range of media law and policy issues. He also writes and speaks about these issues for MLRC’s media law publications and online programming. Much of his work focuses on MLRC’s international programs and initiatives, including support for media law reform through legislation and litigation.