Tom Leatherbury. (Courtesy photo)

A year from now, students at the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law may be helping investigative reporters gain access to public records.

Or they could be helping publishers defend themselves from libel actions. Or perhaps they will be filing amicus briefs in First Amendment cases.

The law school in Dallas is the latest to announce plans to launch a First Amendment clinic, joining a rapidly growing cohort of campuses with such programs. SMU's clinic will come online in the fall of 2020, with $900,000 in funding from the Stanton Foundation—an organization dedicated to the protection of the First Amendment.

"I think there is huge renewed interest in government transparency, with the rise of non-profit journalism and some of the investigative pieces they've been responsible for," said Tom Leatherbury, a partner at Vinson & Elkins who will head up the new clinic as an adjunct. "I also think, given the financial condition of the publishing industry over the past 10 or 15 years, there's probably a lot of work that's not being done because there is no budget for it. I think these clinics will give publishers, broadcasters, freelancers and journalists more opportunity to bring those types of access motions that lawyers in private practice have, perhaps, not been willing to do."

The Stanton Foundation has been working to expand geographic access to pro bono First Amendment help though its network of clinics, Leatherbury said. The organization, which was created by former CBS News president Frank Stanton, gave Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law nearly $1 million in 2018 to establish its First Amendment clinic. Since then, it has pledged similar amounts to start clinics at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law; University of Georgia School of Law; and Tulane University Law School. They join existing First Amendment clinics at Yale Law School; the University of Virginia School of Law; and the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law, among others. The $900,000 gift to SMU will cover the new clinic's core operations for five years.

The proliferation of First Amendment clinics means that Leatherbury has abundant resources to draw on as he designs SMU's program over the next 10 months, he said. And a recently announced First Amendment initiative established by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and Yale's Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic will likely establish a set of best practices for handling pro bono free speech cases. The project, dubbed the Free Expression Legal Network, is a coalition of 22 law school clinics that have pledged to help journalists and documentary filmmakers.

"I think there will be some real opportunities to collaborate," he said of the Free Expression Legal Network and the growing number of First Amendment clinics. "I think the [Stanton] Foundation is investing in something that can really be meaningful on both the regional and the national levels."

Leatherbury, who heads Vinson & Elkins' appellate practice, is no stranger to First Amendment work. He has been handling such cases for the past 40 years, representing publishers and broadcasters in a broad array of free speech matters, including libel, newsgathering and access, and privacy. He has also worked with First Amendment clinics at Yale and Cornell Law School.

"We are so pleased our students will have the opportunity to work with such a gifted and experienced litigator," said SMU law dean Jennifer Collins of Leatherbury in an announcement of the new clinic.

For now, Leatherbury said he plans to spend the upcoming months lining up potential cases for the clinic to work on when it debuts in August and recruiting law students to sign up. Ideally, the students could work on a matter involving Texas' anti-SLAPP law, since those cases tend to move quickly and students could potentially see a resolution during the course of a semester.

"I've already put some lines in the water," he said. "We'll have to see what happens over the next six or eight months."