For eight months I've been razzing The New York Times for not immediately naming a replacement on the legal affairs beat for Adam Liptak, once Liptak moved to the Supreme Court beat. True to the word editors gave two weeks ago, the Times finally came through -- with a great pick.
John Schwartz, lately on a space and science beat, is a smart, creative, lively reporter and writer -- one I've admired for many years, since he freelanced regularly for The American Lawyer (during his days at the Washington Post). He's a lawyer. More important, he's written a ton about what lawyers do, and he has the curiosity and heft to keep this beat among the top-tier beats at the paper of record. He'll trade off with Liptak in the newly revived Sidebar column.
Here's the announcement:
Reporters here are sometimes described as adventurous when they write for other sections.
And then there's John Schwartz.
In his career here, he has experienced zero-gravity twice, flown a jetpack, ridden in a prototype of a lunar truck, driven a car shaped like a cupcake, gone down into the sewers of Albuquerque, ridden out a hurricane in New Orleans in the Corps of Engineers bunker, gotten zapped with one million volts of electricity by a giant Tesla coil while wearing a metal suit, and drunk water made from recycled urine and sweat. And he has done it all with an effusive combination of serious science and learned mirth that has made his byline a cult favorite among readers and assignment editors around the paper.
Now, we're proud to announce, John will undertake the greatest adventure of them all: working for the National Desk as the paper's national legal correspondent.
There are, in fact, many flavors of Schwartz. Those who have only known John in his incarnation as the paper's own Tom Swift may not be aware that he is also a lawyer (JD '84 from UT), who wrote extensively about legal issues during his time at the Washington Post. He covered the dozens of suits brought by states against the tobacco industry, and profiled the law firms that work for big tobacco. He was also there for the early days of cyberlaw, writing about the evolution of First Amendment law on the Internet and the Communications Decency Act.
That makes him the perfect candidate to replace the nearly irreplacable Adam Liptak in covering the law and alternating with Adam in writing the weekly Sidebar column. John will continue the paper's franchise coverage of courts and legal issues around the nation, from gay marriage to capital punishment to the latest thinking about executive power. His deep understanding of science and the online world will help us expand our legal coverage into those areas, especially as we integrate more closely with the web. And he will do so with his trademark clarity and cleverness.
As you can see from the accompanying photo, he was elated to get the job, and we feel the same way.
Suzanne Daley and David Firestone
That's Schwartz, floating on air. Let's hope he finds ways to have as much learned fun on his new beat.
