Tom Julin

Tom Julin is a partner at Gunster Yoakley & Stewart and has litigated free speech issues of almost every type in Florida and around the country. He is dedicated to advocating the First Amendment rights of businesses. Most notably, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled favorably in Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc., 564 U.S. 552 (2011) on Tom’s argument that data mining for target marketing is protected against regulation that cannot survive heightened judicial scrutiny. That precedent-setting opinion, which resulted in the invalidation of three state laws, since has been cited in more than 1,000 judicial decisions in which companies have challenged laws and regulations restricting advertising, pharmaceutical sales, securities offerings, labor practices, Internet communications and more. In the early part of his three-decade-plus career, Tom’s clients were primarily newspaper, magazine and book publishers; television stations and networks; wire services and media industry associations. In that world, Tom learned the importance of the free flow of information and how to approach protecting it. Tom’s experience includes the defense of libel, slander and privacy invasion claims. He also has used the federal civil rights act to attack government regulations of speech, and sunshine, public records and Freedom of Information laws to extract information from government agencies. He has used the First Amendment, the Communications Decency Act, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other laws to protect publishers from damage claims of all types.