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Betsy Koch is a founding member of the firm, where her practice spans a broad range of legal issues affecting the media, from the defense of defamation and privacy actions, to reporter’s privilege and subpoenas of news organizations, to copyright and related intellectual property litigation. For more than 20 years, Ms. Koch has represented large and small publishers and broadcasters in cases in state and federal courts throughout the United States, with an emphasis in the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore region.

Among other noteworthy cases, Ms. Koch served as counsel to several news media organizations as amici curiae in Wheeler v. Goulart, in which the District of Columbia Court of Appeals was asked to incarcerate a Washington Post reporter for declining to reveal unpublished information pursuant to a subpoena. Ms. Koch successfully prosecuted Pasha Publications Inc. v. Enmark Gas Co., the groundbreaking copyright infringement case in which the courts first expressly recognized the rights of specialized publishers to protect their works from unauthorized reproduction.

Through the Bar Association of the District of Columbia, Ms. Koch was a principal drafter of the 1988 revisions to the District of Columbia Civil Jury Instructions on Defamation. She is past editor of The Communications Lawyer, a quarterly publication of the American Bar Association Forum on Communications Law, a former member of the Forum’s Governing Board, and a current member of The Communications Lawyer’s Editorial Board. Ms. Koch has also authored the Survey of District of Columbia Circuit Libel Law published by the Media Law Resource Center, including annual updates to the survey since 1989. She is also a former member of the Steering Committee of the District of Columbia Bar Association Intellectual Property Section.

Ms. Koch is an honors graduate of Vassar College (A.B. 1983) and received her law degree from The University of Michigan Law School (J.D. 1986 cum laude). Following law school, Ms. Koch joined the law firm of Ross, Dixon & Masback, L.L.P., first as an associate and then as a partner. Ms. Koch is admitted to practice in the courts of Maryland and the District of Columbia as well as in the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and the United States District Courts for the District of Maryland and the District of Columbia.