Len Niehoff, ’84, is a professor from practice at Michigan Law, where he teaches Civil Procedure, Ethics, Evidence, First Amendment, Media Law, and Law & Theology. He also has taught short seminars on a wide variety of subjects, including the history of banned books and the Salem Witch Trials.

Niehoff has published more than 100 articles in law reviews and law journals, spanning the fields of constitutional law, evidence, litigation strategy, and ethics. He is also the author or co-author of several books, including Rights and Liabilities of Publishers, Broadcasters, and Reporters (McGraw Hill, 1982); Evidence Law (Foundation Press, 2016); and Free Speech: From Core Values to Current Debates (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

He has been quoted as an authority on legal and policy issues by many major media entities, including the The New York Times, the The Washington Post, the The Wall Street Journal, the Huffington Post, Politico, and National Public Radio. He has written dozens of editorials for leading newspapers and online outlets, including an 11-part educational series for The Detroit News on the Bill of Rights.

Additionally, Niehoff is of counsel to the Honigman law firm and is a nationally recognized practitioner in three different fields: media law, higher education law, and trial and appellate litigation. For more than 35 years, he has represented print, broadcast, and online media entities in libel, privacy, and access cases. This has included assistance with reporting that has won a Pulitzer Prize and a Peabody Award. He also has represented colleges and universities in numerous cases, mostly involving constitutional issues. Among other things, he served on the team that represented the University of Michigan in its historic defense of its affirmative action programs in the Gratz and Grutter cases before the US Supreme Court. He also practices as a litigation and appellate generalist and has argued cases before the Michigan Supreme Court and the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit involving a wide array of tax, energy, and commercial issues. 

He is a member of the Michigan Supreme Court Advocates Guild, the editorial board of the American Bar Association Litigation Journal, and the governing committee of the American Bar Association Forum on Communications Law. In 2021, the Michigan Supreme Court appointed him to co-chair its task force on media access and privacy in online judicial proceedings. He is a Life Fellow of the Michigan and American Bar Foundations and a fellow of the Romney Institute for Law & Public Policy. He also holds a faculty affiliation with the Law School’s Law and Ethics Program and serves as the ethics adviser to the Michigan Innocence Clinic.

In addition to his academic degrees, he studied at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit.  

Related Information

Areas of Interest

Education

  • University of Michigan, BA
  • University of Michigan, JD

Recent Courses

Featured Scholarship

"When to Be Objectionable… And How Not to Be an Artless Clay-Brained Pignut"

Litigation
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  • Litigation

"The Stoic Litigator"

Litigation
  • Litigation

Free Speech: From Core Values to Current Debates

"Are We There Yet? Discovery for the New Litigator"

GPSolo
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  • Litigation
See All Scholarship

Activities

October 2019

Presented "Speech on Campus: Current Issues" at the University of Vermont 29th Annual Legal Issues in Higher Education Conference, Burlington, Vermont.

February 2019

Moderated the panel discussion, "Catch and Kill: Does the First Amendment Protect the Right to Buy a Story to Bury It?," at the annual meeting of the American Bar Association Forum on Communications Law, Miami.

January 2019

Presented "Privacy in Public Spaces: What is Private in the Digital Age?" at the Privacy@Michigan symposium, University of Michigan.

November 2018

Participated in the panel discussion, "Ethics for Media Lawyers," at the Communications Law in the Digital Age seminar conducted by the Practicing Law Institute, New York City.

October 2018

Presented "Employee Free Speech" and participated in a panel discussion on "Free Speech on Campus" at the 28th Annual Legal Issues in Higher Education Conference, University of Vermont.

May 2018

Served as a moderator and panelist at the session, "Tweeters Gone Wild: The Ethical and Legal Consequences of Robust and Unrestrained Speech by Litigants and Lawyers Addicted to Social Media," at the 31st Annual Media and the Law Seminar, University of Kansas School of Law.

April 2018

Presented his paper, "Of Bee Stings, Mud Pies, and Outhouses: Exploring the Value of Satire Through the Philosophy of Useful Untruths," at The State of Our Satirical Union: Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell at 30 Symposium, Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and the Law, University of Minnesota.

March 2018

Served as a moderator for the panel, "Hot Issues in Ethics," at the annual meeting of the American Bar Association Forum on Communications Law, Napa Valley, California.

February 2018

Presented "The Free Speech Rights of Employees" at the Free Speech and Campus Unrest Workshop sponsored by the National Association of College and University Attorneys, New Orleans.