On July 28, 2017, Washington Legal Foundation published an interview in which Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law Professor Martin H. Redish answered questions on the evolution of commercial-speech protection. This “Conversations With” paper provides a fitting culmination to the series of WLF publications on commercial speech produced in the last six months.
Over the past 46 years, beginning with a 1971 law review article drafted as a Harvard Law School student, Professor Redish’s scholarship has deeply influenced the US Supreme Court’s development of the so-called commercial-speech doctrine. In the Conversations With paper, he discusses the impetus for that article, as well as the High Court’s growing respect for commercial speech.
The WLF publications were meant to provide policy makers at the state and federal levels with a basic understanding of commercial speech and the First Amendment scrutiny courts apply when reviewing restrictions on such speech. The publications, with links to each, are listed below:
- What Counts as “Commercial Speech” Today? by James M. Beck, Reed Smith LLP
- Better Think Twice before Restricting Commercial Speech, by Thomas R. Julin, Gunster Yoakley & Stuart, PA
- Precautions for Commercial-Speech Regulators, by Bert W. Rein and Megan L. Brown, Wiley Rein LLP
- First Amendment Limits Government’s Power to Compel Commercial Speech, by Jonathan F. Cohn and Paul J. Ray, Sidley Austin LLP
- Commercial-Speech Regulations Must Be No More Extensive than Necessary, by Sarah Roller and Katie Bond, Kelley Drye & Warren LLP
- Conversations With … The Intellectual Godfather of Commercial Speech Protection, featuring Professor Martin H. Redish and Jay B. Stephens, Chairman of WLF’s Legal Policy Advisory Board