Ashley I. Kissinger

Practice Areas

Ashley Kissinger has represented media and entertainment clients in First Amendment and related matters for over 25 years. Ashley collaborates with her clients to reduce legal risk, defend complex cases, access court proceedings and government information, and fight government censorship. She conducts pre-publication review, vetting, and clearance for newspapers, broadcasters, magazines, film producers, and streaming platforms. She defends her clients when they receive subpoenas for sources and other information protected by the reporter’s privilege. Licensed in numerous state and federal courts, Ashley is sought out to defend complex defamation, privacy, right-of-publicity, and copyright infringement cases nationwide. Clients have also turned to Ashley for in-house assistance. In 2021, she spent eight months working with NBCUniversal’s litigation department, where she worked with the company’s news, advertising, and sports counsel on a variety of complex issues.

Ashley’s work has established important precedents around the country. She obtained a ruling from the Nevada Supreme Court holding that law enforcement may not search a murdered journalist’s electronic devices. She set new precedent under Colorado’s anti-SLAPP statute protecting online consumer reviewers. She obtained a ruling from the Fourth Circuit establishing that government officials cannot retaliate and suppress speech while off duty when they are motivated by speech about them in their official capacities. She obtained a rare declaratory judgment in California under the SPEECH Act, a federal statute protecting the press from foreign libel judgments. And she obtained a court order requiring a state senator to stop blocking a constituent on social media.

In the international arena, Ashley spent several years advocating for the development of a free and independent press in the Arabian Peninsula. She drafted proposed amendments to press laws, helped reporters develop a code of ethics, and taught free expression law to lawyers, journalists, and public officials in Yemen, Kuwait, Jordan, and elsewhere in the region.

Career

Admissions:

California

Colorado

District of Columbia

New York

Texas

U.S. Supreme Court

U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, Tenth, and District of Columbia Circuits

U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado

U.S. District Courts for the Central and Northern Districts of California

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland

U.S. District Courts for the Northern and Western Districts of Texas

Professional Memberships

Co-Chair, Legal Frontiers in Digital Media Conference 2020 & 2021, San Francisco, Media Law Resource Center

Member, Journalism Funding Partners Board of Directors

Past Co-Chair, ABA First Amendment and Media Litigation Committee

Past Co-Chair, ABA Women in Communications Law Committee

ABA Forum on Communications Law

International Senior Lawyers Project

Colorado Bar Association

Colorado Women's Bar Association

Boulder County Bar Association

Former Adjunct Instructor in Law of Mass Communications, Trinity Washington University