Anti-SLAPP litigation

We live and breathe Anti-SLAPP litigation.  

What does that mean?  When you use your First Amendment rights, you just might bother someone else.  After all, the First Amendment is not there to protect speech that makes everyone happy.  It is there to protect you when you speak on matters of public concern, when you want to protest, when you want to raise hell.  

Now imagine you do that and someone with a lot more money than you decides that they want to shut you up.  They file a lawsuit against you, and you call a lawyer.  That lawyer tells you “freedom isn’t free.”  In other words, kiss tens of thousands of dollars goodbye to defend yourself.  Sure, you might win, but at the end of the case, you’re still broke.   

If you file a motion to dismiss the case and win, you’re still out tens of thousands of dollars.  If the court decides that it would rather not dismiss the case, even just out of laziness, now you have to go through discovery and maybe even a trial.  Thats even more tens and tens of thousands of dollars.  

In short, unless you have a good insurance policy covering you (which you probably don’t) or you are independently wealthy (which you probably aren’t) you are looking at being ruined even if you win.  

Are you going to just give up instead of fighting?  Probably.  

That’s where Anti-SLAPP laws level the playing field.  

If your state has an Anti-SLAPP law, you can file an Anti-SLAPP motion.  That motion will usually stop the litigation in its tracks and force the court to immediately evaluate whether the plaintiff’s case is too weak for them to win.  Even better, if the judge denies your motion, you usually have a right to an interlocutory appeal.  That means that you can immediately run to the appeals court and get that bad decision reversed.  

We don’t just litigate these cases.  Attorney Randazza was instrumental in writing the Nevada Anti-SLAPP law.  He also provided input into the New York Anti-SLAPP law, and there are provisions in that law that Randazza supplied to the legislature.  He has consulted with legislatures and legislative efforts in Anti-SLAPP legislation in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Hampshire, Wyoming, Massachusetts, and Arizona.  He has worked on Anti-SLAPP cases in California, Florida, Nevada, New York, Massachusetts, Texas, and multiple federal courts as well.  

We don’t just fight these cases, we have been at the ground floor in writing the laws.  We publish on these issues.  We are “lawyers’ lawyers” who are often retained by other law firms to come in and provide our expertise on Anti-SLAPP issues.