Manhattan Institute CLP Director

James R. Copland is the director of the Manhattan Institute's Center for Legal Policy, which seeks to communicate thoughtful ideas on civil justice reform to real decision-makers. Mr. Copland serves as managing editor of the Institute's PointOfLaw.com, a web magazine that brings together information and opinion on the U.S. litigation system; and project manager for the Institute's Trial Lawyers, Inc. series of publications that examine the size, scope, and inner workings of America's lawsuit industry.

Mr. Copland has published opinion columns in national, local, and online newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, The National Law Journal, Investors Business Daily, and National Review Online. He has appeared on various television and radio shows, including those on Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, C-SPAN, and NPR. He has testified before Congress and is a regular speaker and conference participant discussing tort reform issues.

Prior to joining the Manhattan Institute, Mr. Copland was a management consultant with McKinsey and Company in New York. He had earlier served as a law clerk for Hon. Ralph K. Winter on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He has been a director of two privately held manufacturing companies since 1997.

Mr. Copland received JD and MBA degrees from Yale, where he was an Olin Fellow in Law and Economics and an editor of the Yale Journal on Regulation. He also has an MSc in politics of the world economy from the London School of Economics and a BA in economics with highest distinction and highest honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar.

PointofLaw.com, a webmagazine that brings together information and opinion on the U.S. litigation system

Select Media

Blog Talk Radio's "Take AIM", 2-11-10
WLW's "The Bill Cunningham Show", 2-11-10
WIBA's "Upfront with Vicki McKenna", 2-11-10
Talk Radio Network's "America's Morning News", 2-11-10
Fox News "Strategy Room", 2-11-10
WBAL's "C4 Show", 2-10-10
Radio Free Washington, 2-10-10
WVON's "The Charles Butler Show", 2-9-10
WTOP's Federal News Radio, 2-10-10
WBT's "The Tara Servatius Show", 2-9-10
MSNBC "Live", 1-28-10
The Small Business Advocate with Jim Blasingame, 11-24-09
WTIC's "The Brad Davis Show", 10-22-09
Fox News "Strategy Room", 10-20-09
WLW's "The Mike McConnell Show", 10-15-09
WIBA's "Upfront with Vicki McKenna", 10-15-09
WBAL's "The Ron Smith Show", 10-14-09
Westwood One's "The Lars Larson Show", 10-13-09
KUOW's "The Conversation with Ross Reynolds", 9-15-09
Talk Radio Network's "America's Morning News", 7-16-09
Fox News Radio Live, 7-14-09
Radio America's "The G. Gordon Liddy Show", 6-30-09
WABC's "Tiempo", 5-31-09. [Part I] [Part II] [Part III] [Part IV].
NY1's "Road to City Hall", 5-26-09
PBS "Newshour with Jim Lehrer", 5- 26-09. [Part I] [Part II]
WCBS Evening News, 5-26-09.
WABC's Eyewitness News, 5-26-09

Articles/Op-eds

Lawyers' Lies and the Lying Lawyers Who Tell Them, Townhall.com, 02-23-10
9/11 Suits: Lawyers' Rx For Injustice, New York Post, 02-15-10
Trial Lawyers Still Love Specter, Pittsburg Post-Gazette, 02-15-10
Trial lawyers: Democrats' Other Money Machine, Washington Examiner, 02-10-10
How the Plaintiffs Bar Bought the Senate, Wall Street Journal, 02-09-10
What Obama Should Say In His State of the Union, Washington Examiner, 01-27-10
Vague Law Is Bad Law, Washington Examiner, 12-09-09
Healthcare And Tort Reform, The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, 12-01-09
Tort-Bar Treat, New York Post, 11-03-09
Here's What is Stopping Tort Reform, Washington Examiner, 10-14-09
Greenberg's Settlement, Spitzer's Folly, Forbes.com, 08-26-09
Why Politicized Judges Spark Rancorous Confirmations, Washington Examiner, 07-15-09
What of Impartiality?, National Law Journal, 06-01-09
On Souter’s Replacement, Litigation, And Empathy, Washington Examiner, 05-19-09
Manhattan Moment: Card Check is Still Alive and Deadly for Workers, Washington Examiner, 04-08-09
A Dose of Skepticism: The Supreme Court's ruling in Wyeth is likely to unleash conflicting standards and a flood of litigation, Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journal, 03-19-09
A 'Cure' Worse Than Gangrene, Washington Times, 03-09-09
West Virginia Too Heavenly For Trial Lawyers, West Virginia Record, 11-03-08
Is Ballot Proposal Real Reform or Partisan Ploy?, Detroit News, 07-23-08
Asbestos Litigation Far From Over, Examiner.com, 05-07-08
Smoke Test for Supremes, The New York Sun, 04-09-08
Leave It to the FDA, Washington Post, 03-15-08
Spitzer's Sins in the Spotlight, National Review Online, 03-11-08
Mississippi on Trial, National Review Online, 11-06-07
Courts Thin Out Lead Paint Lawsuits, Examiner.com, 09-19-07
Bush Brief May Help Slow Lawsuit Abuse, Examiner.com, 08-22-07
Lighting Up, The New York Sun, 06-15-07
A Judge Cries 'Sue!', New York Post, 06-13-07
The One Best Idea, The New York Sun, 05-26-07
Safety in Numbers?, The American, 05-02-07
Gun Control Doesn't Fit This Crime, Washington Post, 04-19-07
Are U.S. IPOs DOA?, Washington Post, 04-12-07
The Capital Market Crackup, Chief Executive Magazine, 12-01-06
Simply Wrong, New York Post, 10-20-06
Plaintiff Bar's 'Next Best Thing'?, Connecticut Law Tribune, 09-04-06
Exploiting for Profit, National Law Journal, 08-28-06
Supreme Court's New Glue?, Newsday, 08-28-06
Miers' Best Trait: Her Paperless Trail, Newsday, 10-04-05
Tort Tax Cut, Washington Times, 02-15-05
Turning Out Trial Lawyers, Inc., National Review Online, 11-08-04
Pension Politics Foils Curbs On Shareholder Strike Suits, Investor's Business Daily, 09-23-04
These Actions Have No Class, Examiner.com, 09-15-04
Kerry-Edwards & Co., National Review Online, 07-08-04
Legislators Must Overhaul Medical-Malpractice Guidelines, Daily Journal, 03-16-04
Tort Law Represtents a Growth Industry, The Oklahoman, 03-02-04
Primary Pass, National Review Online, 01-26-04
Fiction to Fact, National Review Online, 12-26-03
Liable To Infection Flu Vaccine in Short Supply Partly Because of Trial Lawyers and Tort Tax, Dallas Morning News, 12-14-03
NY: 'Hellhole', New York Post, 06-13-03
The Tort Tax, Wall Street Journal, 06-13-03
Kill baseless, batty plan to ban metal bats Daily News, 10-25-06
Proposition 79’s assault on drugs San Francisco Examiner, 10-26-05
Trial Lawyers, Inc.: California's dangerous big business San Francisco Examiner, 4-14-05
A Dangerous Prescription: Trial Lawyers, Inc. Takes on Missouri Medicine Missouri Medicine, Nov/Dec 2004

Testimony

Hearing on America's Capital Markets: Maintaining Our Lead in the 21st Century, Testimony before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services (April 26, 2006)

Papers

In the Wake of Wyeth v. Levine: Making the Case for FDA Preemption and Administrative Compensation By James R. Copland and Paul Howard March 2009
Malpractice Liability: Thoughtful Tort Reform is Good Medicine What States Can Do to Reform Health Care: A Free Market Primer (Edited by John R. Graham), 2006
Tragic Solutions: The 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, Historical Antecedents, and Lessons for Tort Reform (January 13, 2005)

Features

Area man takes on the legal machine Times-News, 2-20-04

City Journal articles

Defeat Cloaked in Victory, 30 June 2009
Lawyer Lead-ership, Spring 2006

Podcasts