Floyd Abrams

Floyd Abrams (born July 9, 1936) is an American attorney at Cahill Gordon & Reindel. He is an expert on constitutional law, and many arguments in the briefs he has written before the United States Supreme Court have been adopted as United States Constitutional interpretative law as it relates to the First Amendment and free speech. He is the William J. Brennan Jr. Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. Abrams argued for The New York Times and Judith Miller in the CIA leak grand jury investigation. Abrams joined Cahill Gordon & Reindel in 1963, and became a partner in 1970. --- Abrams earned his undergraduate degree from Cornell University in 1956, and his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1960. He is Jewish and lives in New York City with wife Efrat. Together they have a son, Dan Abrams of ABC, and a daughter, Judge Ronnie Abrams of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. He is a member of the Constitution Project's Liberty and Security Committee and a patron of the Media Legal Defence Initiative. From 1961-63, Abrams clerked for Judge Paul Leahy of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. He returned to Yale as a Visiting Lecturer from 1974–80, and again from 1986-89. He was also a Visiting Lecturer at Columbia Law School from 1981-85.