Litigation
Jun. 15, 2002
Breaking News
Top 30 Women Litigators - Kelli Sager - Kelli Sager marked the pinnacle of her success with three words she - and every journalist on the planet - always has wanted to shout: "Stop the presses!"
Kelli Sager
Kelli Sager marked the pinnacle of her success with three words she - and every journalist on the planet - always has wanted to shout: "Stop the presses!"
It was just before midnight on April 4 when the 42-year-old lawyer from Davis Wright Tremaine, dressed in street clothes, successfully argued it would be unconstitutional to block the publication of information that lawyers for the Los Angeles Archdiocese deemed too sensitive to print.
During the late-night, last-minute hearing, held in an otherwise deserted Los Angeles Superior Court courthouse, Sager, representing the Los Angeles Times, argued to Judge David Yaffe that the state constitution provided an absolute right to publish.
The newspaper obtained e-mail correspondence between Cardinal Roger Mahony and his lawyers regarding three diocese priests accused of wrongdoing. The church failed to disclose their identities to authorities, the e-mails read.
"It was wild. It was five [minutes] to midnight, and we stopped the presses to put in a story about the nighttime hearing," Sager says.
She notes that they published the e-mails April 5.
A partner in the Los Angeles office of Seattle-based Davis Wright, Sager specializes in media and constitutional law.
In college, Sager considered a career as either a newspaper reporter or a lawyer. She earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from USC and a law degree from the University of Utah.
She opted to combine both passions and litigate First Amendment cases, representing news organizations.
"If you're going to be a lawyer, there's nothing better than this," she says of the media practice she built at Davis Wright.
Sager started her career at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher in 1985, right out of law school. She stayed there until 1994 when she joined Davis Wright as partner.
Donna Huffaker
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