Sidley Austin has a long history of collaboration with Northwestern University, and Richard O’Brien, a Sidley partner in Chicago, has defended media companies under the state’s shield law for years. But the two lines of work have never crossed until now, as Sidley is representing Northwestern and several former journalism students who concluded, after a three-year investigation, that a man convicted of a 1978 Chicago-area murder is actually innocent.
The school retained Sidley to fight a rare request from prosecutors who want access to the students’ notes, grades and other materials as part of the state’s examination into whether the alleged murderer deserves a new trial, according to a Chicago Tribune report from over the weekend. O’Brien and the school claim the prosecutors’ request would violate the state’s so-called shield law, which protects media members, as well as privacy laws protecting student grades and records, according to the Tribune.
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