Professor Randolph McLaughlin | Discussion of the Upcoming Documentary: How to Sue the Klan

Legal Tenzer: Casual Conversations on Noteworthy Legal Topics

In this episode, Professor Randolph McLaughlin of the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, discusses the upcoming documentary How to Sue the Klan . How to Sue the Klan is the story of how Five Black women from Chattanooga used legal ingenuity to take on the Ku Klux Klan in a historic 1982 civil case, fighting to hold them accountable for their crimes and bring justice to their community. Their victory set a legal precedent that continues to inspire the ongoing fight against organized hate. You can learn more about the movie here. Professor McLaughlin was a lead attorney in the fight and integral to the case's success.
About Our Guest:
Professor Randolph M. McLaughlin joined the Haub Law faculty in 1988. He teaches courses focusing on civil rights, litigation, labor law, voting rights, civil procedure, and New York Practice, and is passionate about incorporating his renowned legal experience representing historical landmark civil rights cases into his coursework.

Professor McLaughlin is also Counsel to Newman Ferrara LLP, a national practice focused on Real Estate, Commercial Litigation, Civil Rights, Class Actions and other Complex, Multiparty Litigation. Prior to joining Haub Law, he was an attorney associated with Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein, with whom he did litigation and labor law work.

Professor McLaughlin began his career at the Center for Constitutional Rights, a civil-rights/civil-liberties legal organization in New York City. For eight years he worked side by side with the renowned civil-rights attorney William Kunstler. He was responsible for the management and coordination of important cases at both the trial and appellate levels, and pioneered the development of legal strategies to redress racially motivated violence. In 1982, he won an award of $535,000 for five black women who had been attacked by members of the Chattanooga Ku Klux Klan.

In 1985, Professor McLaughlin represented two civil-rights leaders in a constitutional- tort action against a former United States Senator, a Senate investigator, and a Kentucky prosecutor in connection with the search and seizure of the plaintiffs' personal papers in violation of the Fourth Amendment. In that case, a federal jury awarded the plaintiffs $1.6 million dollars in compensatory damages.

In 1997, Professor McLaughlin won a landmark victory in a voting rights case against the Town of Hempstead, N.Y. A federal judge ruled that the town-wide method of electing the Town Council was discriminatory and ordered that the system be dismantled.

Professor McLaughlin also represented the family of Charles Campbell, who had been killed during a dispute over a parking space in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y in 1997. The shooter, an off-duty New York City police officer, was subsequently convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to a prison term of twenty years to life. Professor McLaughlin filed suit against the shooter and his alleged accomplices, and a federal jury eventually awarded the plaintiff $5 million dollars in damages.

In 2007, he intervened on behalf of a Hispanic political activist in a voting-rights lawsuit brought by the United States Department of Justice against the Village of Port Chester, N.Y. On January 17, 2008, the District Court found that the Village's at-large election system violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The court ordered the Village to adopt a cumulative voting system to remedy the violations of federal law.