National Legal Center for the Public Interest

National Legal Center for the Public Interest (NLCPI) describes itself as a law and educational foundation. According to its own website it was "created in 1975, [and] is committed to fostering knowledge about law and the administration of justice."

The website goes on to explain that "The Center contributes to the development of public debate and policy by providing the public and private sectors with timely information on key legal, legislative, regulatory, and economic issues of national importance. It does this through its educational publications and educational forums. The Center does not litigate." 

NLCPI follows the political agendas of its right-wing funders, vehemently opposing affirmative action and financing books such as Conservatives in Power: The Task of Governing by Terry Eastland.

They also founded and publish the "Public Interest Law Review", a heavily conservative publication "aimed at readers with an interest in the making and execution of public policy (law professors, political scientists, government officials, judges, and journalists who cover legal affairs)…[The] annual review discusses and debates issues of consequence for the public interest. Recent court decisions are covered and book reviews are included." 

It is at the core of a large network of right-wing, business-oriented Legal Centers funded by the Scaife, Coor, Bradley, Olin interests.

History
This is a memberless organisation (consisting only of a Board). It was founded in 1975 as a 501(c)3 non-profit, based in Washington. The Pacific Legal Foundation (a right-wing, pro-business, legal group run by Ron Zumbrun) had conducted a study which concluded that the most effective way to counter the liberal, public-interest legal foundation model, was through an umbrella model creating a separate national coordinating entity for new PLFs in other regions. Initial funding was to come from J. Simon Fluor and Richard Mellon Scaife.

The PLF subsequently went on to establish the New England Legal Foundation, Great Plains Legal Foundation (now Landmark Legal Foundation), and Mountain States Legal Foundation.

But the NLCPI, in turn, was instrumental itself in spawning the Atlantic Legal Foundation (ex Mid Atlantic LF), Capital Legal Center, Mid-America Legal Foundation (not to be confused with Mid-Atlantic LF which became the Atlantic LC), and SouthEastern Legal Center.

The organisation's propaganda says that it doesn't involve itself in litigation as did many of its offspring, but at one time it did file suit (via Capital Legal Foundation - with $2 million of Scaife funding) on behalf of General Westmoreland against CBS News. However, more recently it has taken on the role of acting as coordinator and communications center for all of these business-oriented legal-lobbyist/activist groups.

Funds pass through this network of legal foundations from on to another, so it is impossible to say which is being funded from what source with complete accuracy. However these are all primarily supported by the Sarah Scaife & Carthage Foundations, together with money from the Coors (beer) and Fluor families, and from the Southern Pacific Co. The NLCPI itself was initially funded by the John M. Olin Foundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

Direction
The organisation has been led by Ernest B ("Ernie") Hueter, described in a Tobacco Institute report as a "one-time professional gag-writer", who later became the Chairman and CEO of Interstate Brands (which makes bread, cakes and confectionary). NOTE: His name is often mis-spelled as Heuter.

In 1988 the organisation inherited a number of aides and associates of Ed Meese, the former Counsellor to President Reagan and Attorney General (also the cover-up expert over the Iran-contra affair). Meese had also been instrumental in co-founding (with other Reagan aides) the Pacific Legal Foundation when Reagan was State Governor: this was created as an attack-dog which could be directed (at a safe distance) against the Californian liberals and organisations like the Sierra Club.

The NLCPI is given grants for its day-to-day activities by large corporations such as Philip Morris/Kraft, UST, Alcoa and ExxonMobil, and it also receives special grants for specific activities on their behalf.

In 1990 Philip Morris contributed $2,500 to cost of publishing "Pernicious Ideas and Costly Consequences: The Intellectual Roots of the Tort Crisis" which was part of the tobacco (and other) industries long-running project to attack product liability laws, reduce punative damages, and limit class actions. Kraft General Foods (a PM subsidiary) also contributed $2,500 to other publications.

Philip Morris's 1991 budget reports that the legal foundation has a budget of "somewhat under a million dollars", which included a $10,000 contribution from Philip Morris/Kraft.

It tends to focus these days on its program of publications, and so acts more like a think-tank than a normal legal lobbyist.

Relevant articles

 * Right-wing firms pick up steam; a growing force in public interest work.
 * Public Interest Legal Foundations.

Personnel

 * Ernest B. Hueter, President

Directors

 * Stephen F. Gates - Sr. Vice President & General Counsel, ConocoPhillips; Acting Chairman, NLCPI
 * Jay B. Stephens - Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Raytheon Company
 * Terrence B. Adamson - Executive Vice President/Legal, National Geographic Society
 * Arnaud de Borchgrave - Senior Advisor, Center for Strategic & International Studies
 * Larry P. Thompson - Sr. Vice President, Government Affairs, General Counsel and Secretary PepsiCo, Inc.
 * Joan D. Aikens - Former Chair, Federal Election Commission
 * R. William Ide III - Partner, McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP
 * John R. Towers - Vice Chairman (Ret.) - State Street Corporation
 * William P. Barr - Executive Vice President & General Counsel, Verizon Corporation, Inc.
 * Dean R. Kleckner - Chairman, Truth About Trade
 * Carlton E. Turner, Ph.D., D.Sc. - President and Chief Executive Officer, Carrington Laboratories, Inc.
 * Barbara Barrett - President & CEO, Triple Creek Ranch
 * Charles T. Manatt - Partner, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP
 * William H. Webster - Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy
 * K. David Boyer - Chief Executive Officer, GlobalWatch Technologies, Inc.
 * Harry C. McPherson - Partner, DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary LLP
 * Walter E. Williams - George Mason University
 * Carolyn S. Chambers - Chairman and CEO, Chambers Communications Corp.
 * Christine P. Richards - Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, FedEx Corporation
 * Wendell L. Willkie II - Sr. Vice President & General Counsel, MeadWestvaco Corporation

Emeriti Source
 * The Honorable Griffin B. Bell - King & Spaulding, LLP
 * Ernest B. Hueter - Past President, NLCPI

Legal Advisory Council
The Legal Advisory Council of the NLCPI, led by Eugene B. Meyer, functions as a support group for the NLCPI organization. The Council provides the Center with assistance in identifying projects and outside participants and additionally functions as a speakers bureau for the Center's activities. 

Source
 * Jan Amundson - Vice President and General Counsel, Law Department, National Association of Manufacturers
 * John L. Howard - Sr. Vice President and Genereal Counsel, W.W. Grainger, Inc.
 * George J. Terwilliger III - White & Case LLP
 * Edward J. Burger - Director, Institute for Health Policy Analysis
 * Frank W. Hunger - Covington & Burling
 * Dick Thornburgh - Kirkpatrick Lockhart Nicolson Graham LLP
 * Henry N. Butler, J.D., Ph.D. - Director, Judicial Education Program, AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies
 * William J. Kilberg - Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
 * Stanley A. Twardy, Jr. - Day, Berry & Howard, LLP
 * James B. Comey - Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Lockheed Martin Corporation
 * David G. Leitch - Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Ford Motor Company
 * Don Wallace, Jr. - Chairman, The International Law Institure
 * Charles Cooper - Cooper and Kirk, PLLC
 * Bryan A. Liang, M.D., Ph.D., J.D. - Executive Director, Institute of Health Law Studies California Western School of Law and Univ. of California San Diego School of Medicine
 * Roger E. Warin - Steptoe & Johnson LLP
 * L. Gordon Crovitz - Senior Vice President, President, Electronic Publishing, Dow Jones & Company
 * Eugene Meyer - Executive Director, The Federalist Society for Law
 * Seth P. Waxman - WilmerHale
 * Walter E. Dellinger III - O'Melveny & Myers LLP
 * Tim A. O'Brien - PBS
 * Robert N. Weiner - Arnold & Porter LLP
 * Joseph E. diGenova - diGenova & Toensing, LLP
 * Theodore B. Olson - Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP
 * Richard K. Williard - Attorney
 * Albert W. Driver - Editor, The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel
 * Victor E. Schwartz - Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P.
 * Linda A. Willett - Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company
 * Hayward D. Fisk - Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, Computer Sciences Corporation
 * Clifford M. Sloan - Vice President and General Counsel, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive
 * David F. Zoll - Vice President & Genreal Counsel (Ret.), American Chemistry Council
 * George S. Frazza - Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler LLP
 * Kenneth W. Starr - Dean, School of Law, Pepperdine University
 * Stuart M. Gerson - Epstein Becker & Green, P.C.
 * William K. Suter - Clerk of the Court, Supreme Court of the United States

Funding
In addition to the corporations below, NLCPI has received grants from:
 * The Carthage Foundation (See Scaife Foundations.)
 * Sarah Scaife Foundation (See Scaife Foundations.)
 * John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.
 * The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc.
 * Scaife Family Foundation (See Scaife Foundations.)

Past contributors include:
 * ALCOA Foundation
 * AT&T Foundation
 * Abbott Laboratories Fund
 * AlliedSignal Foundation
 * Amoco Foundation
 * Bell Atlantic Foundation
 * Bethlehem Steel Foundation
 * Chase Manhattan Foundation
 * Duke Power Company Foundation
 * Emerson Charitable Trust
 * Exxon Educational Foundation
 * Fannie Mae Foundation
 * Ford Motor Company Fund
 * GTE Foundation
 * H.J. Heinz Company Foundation
 * Kimberly-Clark Foundation
 * Lowe's Charitable & Educational Foundation
 * Merrill Lynch & Company Foundation
 * Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Foundation
 * Nabisco Foundation
 * Procter & Gamble Fund
 * Rockwell International Corporation Trust
 * Sprint Foundation
 * Rockwell International Corporation Trust
 * TRW Foundation
 * Textron Charitable Trust

Contact Information
1600 K Street, N.W., Suite 800 Washington, DC 20006 Tel: (202) 466-9360 Fax: (202) 466-9366 Website: http://www.nlcpi.org

Related Resources

 * National Legal Center for the Public Interest, White Paper, "Ergonomics: OSHA's Strange Campaign to Run American Business," August 1994 (regarding the 12-year effort to regulate repetitive-motion jobs that was killed thanks to President George W. Bush, Tom DeLay and Eugene Scalia (see also National Coalition on Ergonomics)).
 * Griffin B. Bell, "Asbestos Litigation And Judicial Leadership: The Courts Duty To Help Solve The Asbestos Litigation Crisis" (pdf file), June 2002, published by National Legal Center for the Public Interest.
 * "Reaffirmation of the American Founding".
 * "Fact Sheet", ExxonSecrets.org, Undated.

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