Goodale joined Debevoise & Plimpton in 1980, bringing
The New York Times as a client with him. He established two practice groups, one for the representation of media companies, particularly new media companies such as cable television, the other for
First Amendment and
intellectual property litigation. At Debevoise, he or his groups have represented
The New York Times, the
Hearst Corporation,
NBC,
Cablevision, the
New York Observer,
Paris Review,
Infinity Broadcasting, the
NFL,
NHL, and
NBA. He has personally represented
George Plimpton,
Harry Evans,
Tina Brown,
Margaret Truman, and former New York City Mayor
John Lindsay. In 2001, Debevoise & Plimpton represented
The New York Times in the Supreme Court case of
New York Times Co. v. Tasini on the issue of copyright. This was the fourth case in which Goodale represented
The New York Times at the Supreme Court. As counsel to
George Plimpton, Goodale convinced Plimpton to turn
The Paris Review into a
non-profit Foundation. Over the initial rejections of Plimpton, Goodale's decision to make the literary magazine a non-profit Foundation ensured
The Paris Review would survive beyond Plimpton's 2003 death. Plimpton had been the magazine's editor and part owner since 1953. Under the new management of the Foundation, of which Goodale was a lead director, circulation grew from around 10,000 in 2003 to 28,000 in 2023, an unusually high number for a literary magazine. Goodale also assisted in the creation of
The New York Observer, which was founded by
Arthur L. Carter. Goodale also arranged for Carter to purchase
The Nation magazine from
Victor Navasky, which was, in turn, re-purchased by Navasky.
Books On April 30, 2013, Goodale's book
Fighting for the Press: the Inside Story of the Pentagon Papers and Other Battles was published by CUNY Journalism Press and is now available on Amazon.
The New York Times, and the
New York Review of Books reviewed the book favorably. The book received positive reviews from numerous other sources. The
Times said Six days later (May 19)
Fox News reporter
James Rosen was named as a co-conspirator in an application for a
search warrant for the records of
Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a source of Rosen's story about
espionage in
North Korea. On June 9, 2013,
The Washington Post and
The Guardian published
Edward Snowden's leaks of a
National Security Administration program to monitor the phone calls of U.S. citizens. Since Goodale had predicted in his book that President
Barack Obama would attempt to criminalize the newsgathering process, and because the Snowden leak was generally analogous to the leak of the Pentagon Papers, Goodale was swept up into the controversy involving these matters. His defense of the press in the AP and Rosen cases and
the Washington Post and
The Guardian in the publication of Snowden's leaks attracted national attention.
Other books Goodale is the editor of
The New York Times Company v. United States, a collection of the legal papers in the Pentagon Papers case which he assembled immediately following the decision in that case. It was published by Arno Press in 1971. He also wrote
All About Cable (Law Journal Press, New York, 1981). At the time cable was considered
new media, and Goodale outlined the legal problems past, present and future facing
cable television, including those concerning the First Amendment. The book has been cited twice by the
United States Supreme Court.
Television and print From 1995 to 2010, he hosted and produced
Digital Age, a television program on media, politics and society, which aired on WNYE-TV, initially a PBS station, broadcast in 10 million homes in the New York metropolitan area. The program was called
Telecommunications and the Internet Revolution from 1995 to 1999. His guests have included
Ben Bradlee,
Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr.,
Walter Cronkite,
Tom Brokaw,
Arthur Schlesinger,
Henry Kissinger,
Dan Rather,
Chuck Schumer, and
Michael Bloomberg. He conceived, with
Fred Friendly,
Columbia University's media and society seminars. The program aired on
PBS television as the "Fred Friendly Seminars." From 1977 to 2010, he wrote a column in the
New York Law Journal on "Communications and Media Law." His articles on the First Amendment have been published in The Stanford and Hastings Law Reviews, The New York Times,
The New York Review of Books (cover piece)],
The Nation,
The New York Observer,
The National Law Journal, The Guardian,
The Daily Beast, ''Harper's Magazine
, Columbia Journalism Review
, The Neiman Reports, The Hill'' (for which he was opinion columnist). Click on this cite to read James Goodale's articles. He has appeared on
News War section of the award-winning PBS series
Frontline, and the documentary
The Most Dangerous Man in the America – Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2009. He founded the Communications Law Seminar at the Practising Law Institute for media lawyers, for journalists to specialize in law for one year at Yale Law School.
Linda Greenhouse, the noted
Times Supreme Court reporter, is a graduate of this program. Goodale raised the lion's share of money for the endowed chair at Yale Law School in memory of Alexander Bickel, the constitutional scholar who participated in the Pentagon Papers case, 1971, and he simultaneously created scholarships at Yale Law School for four journalists annually to study in part under the holder of the Bickel Chair.
Politics Goodale is a lifelong
Democrat. He chaired the New York Lawyers Committee for the former Governor of Massachusetts
Michael Dukakis, when Dukakis was the Democratic nominee for president in 1988. He was also a member of the Rules Committee of the
1988 Democratic National Convention. In 1976, he was appointed by Governor
Hugh Carey to the New York State Privacy & Security Committee and in 1988 was appointed by Chief Judge,
Sol Wachtler to the New York State Judicial Committee for Minorities where he became chairman in 1991.
Boards From 1989 to 2014, Goodale was a board member of the
Committee to Protect Journalists. His first year as chairman, CPJ had a budget of $300,000 and no endowment. By 2021 it had a budget of more than $12 million with a $17 million endowment. Goodale has also served on the boards of
The New York Times, New York Times Foundation,
New York Observer,
Human Rights Watch, Media Law Reporter, Paris Review Foundation, and the International Center for Journalists.
Controversy In 2005, Goodale criticized
Time editor
Norman Pearlstine's decision to turn over reporter
Matthew Cooper's notes to the grand jury investigating the leak of CIA operative
Valerie Plame's name to the press. "A public company must protect its assets even if that means going into contempt," Goodale said. "It has an obligation under the First Amendment to protect those assets, and it's in the interest of shareholders to protect those assets. Goodale called Pearlstine's decision "disgraceful" and attempted to have him removed from the board of the
Committee to Protect Journalists. Pearlstine published his account of the controversy in a 2007 book
Off the Record: The Press, the Government, and the War over Anonymous Sources.
Personal life Goodale, an accomplished athlete, played ice-hockey and baseball at Yale and maintains a lifelong interest in both. He played football and basketball as well as hockey and baseball at Pomfret School and was inducted into the Pomfret School Athletic Hall of Fame in 2022. From 1998 to 2014 he published a digital newsletter for hockey hobbyists titled MMMCS. Its name was an acronym for the "Murray Murdoch Marching and Chowder Society." Murdoch, a former member of the New York Rangers, was Goodale's college coach. In 1973 he founded Washington Gunnery Hockey & Skating Association, a youth hockey organization in Washington, Connecticut. Goodale is married to former Toni Krissel of New York City who was President of the international fundraising firm, T.K Goodale Associates. They are the parents of Timothy (Principal and CEO of Keel Harbour Capital Ltd.), Ashley (formerly of the NYC Office of Legal Counsel), and foster parents of Clayton Akiwenzie, a Native American, (Managing Director, Mortgage Banking, Berkadia, San Francisco). ==References==