Lincoln Bandlow
Why he matters: Bandlow keeps clients such as Morgan Spurlock and Conan O'Brien out of trouble before they can get into any. The attorney is one of the top specialists for prepublication clearance on documentaries and TV shows, looking for anything that might provoke a libel lawsuit. When things go wrong, he applies his First Amendment knowledge in defense. But he likes to stay ahead of things. For instance, in early April, he told the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that the justices should re-examine a ruling allowing an Innocence of Muslims participant to assert a copyright interest in her performance. Bandlow wrote that giving rights to people appearing in a documentary could threaten the entire genre.