NAFUSA member David Kelley, shown left, and his partner Joel Kurtzberg, are representing New York Times reporter James Risen in his effort to have the courts recognize a reporter’s privilege that would allow him to withhold testimony in a trial of a former CIA agent.

The CIA officer, Jeffrey Sterling, is charged with providing Risen with classified information. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Risen to testify at trial but approved Risen’s request that the proceedings be stayed during his appeal to the the United States Supreme Court. Kelley and Kurtzberg filed the petition for review to the Supreme Court, asking the court to take the case to resolve a split among the lower courts on the issue of a reporter’s privilege.

Kelley served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and is currently a partner at Cahill, Gordon & Reindel in New York. He clerked for the Hon. T.F. Gilroy Daly of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. He earned his J.D. from New York Law School. While attending law school, Kelley served as a police officer and fireman in his home township of East Hampton, New York. He has been an adjunct professor at New York Law School, and has taught trial advocacy clinics at Harvard and Hofstra Law Schools.