BALTIMORE — Sarah Palin, after The New York Times wrongly linked her to a mass shooting.

Dominion Voting Systems, after Fox News aired false claims that the company rigged the 2020 election.

Members of the Sackler family, who owned Purdue Pharma, as the Oxycontin scandal unfolded.

Harvard’s president amid accusations of plagiarism.

And now, Justin Tucker, the Baltimore Ravens kicker, facing claims of sexual misconduct during massages in local spas.

All turned to the Clare Locke law firm, considered by some the go-to for prominent individuals and companies facing what the firm’s website calls “high-profile reputational attacks.”

An Alexandria-based boutique firm, Clare Locke has developed a reputation of its own for winning big verdicts and settlements, going hard against opponents and being part of a movement to make it easier to sue the media and publishers for defamation.

“They’re aggressive. They’re knowledgeable. They are used to dealing with high-profile clients and high-profile defense lawyers,” said Lucy Dalglish, a professor at the University of Maryland journalism school and a former media lawyer and journalist. “They play hardball, and you better be prepared to play hardball too.”

Clare Locke is perhaps best known for being one of the firms that represented Dominion in a defamation suit against Fox, claiming the network knowingly aired lies including that the company’s voting machines flipped votes in 2020 from Donald Trump to the ultimate winner, Joe Biden. With the trial about to start, Fox instead agreed to pay Dominion $787.5 million, the largest known defamation settlement ever.

Founded in 2014 by a now-married couple, Tom Clare and Libby Locke, the firm first came into wider notice two years later. It successfully sued Rolling Stone magazine and a writer for defamation over a since discredited and retracted article about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia, and the school’s supposed uncaring treatment of the student who reported it. A jury awarded $3 million to the firm’s client, an associate dean who said she was made the “chief villain” in the article.

The widely covered cases have brought much attention to the firm — and additional clients.

Among them: UnitedHealthcare, as it contends with anger over its industry unleashed after the shooting death of its CEO in December. Police say Luigi Mangione, the Towson native and 2016 Gilman valedictorian charged in the murder of Brian Thompson, bore animosity toward the health care industry, which has resonated with those who now view him as an outlaw hero. The firm was hired after a doctor in Austin, Texas, posted videos on social media complaining about UnitedHealthcare, triggering a strongly worded letter from Clare Locke.

The firm’s letters have become legendary — one ran 77 pages — dense documents that read like legal briefs, filled with citations and footnotes, demanding changes, retractions or apologies. Its relentless style representing aggrieved clients against both major media outlets and lesser-known individuals figures prominently in a just-published book, “Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful,” by David Enrich, a New York Times investigations editor.

“We are unapologetic about protecting our clients’ rights as far as fairness and accuracy in reporting,” Tom Clare said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun. “It’s advocacy, not bullying or intimidation.”

Clare said the letters serve to give reporters a required “notice of facts, and the legal significance of those facts.”

Tucker is also represented by attorney Joe Terry of Washington-based Williams & Connolly, who in 2023 won a dismissal of a defamation suit filed by former NFL quarterback Brett Favre against the firm’s client, Shannon Sharpe, the sportscaster and one-time Ravens tight end who is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

In representing Tucker, Clare said he is awaiting the outcome of an NFL investigation before determining how to proceed. Tucker has not been charged criminally nor have the allegations resulted in any civil cases.

“When the dust settles, we’re going to take a look at everything,” Clare said. “We don’t just charge in and start filing lawsuits. I think our goal is to make sure, one way or another, our clients’ interests are protected, and the record is clear on what did or did not happen.”

Since taking on Tucker, the firm has handled responses to media inquiries about the case. Its first statements were straight-out denials of the accusations first reported in The Baltimore Banner, which included that Tucker had exposed himself, brushed his penis against masseuses and left what they thought was ejaculate on their massage tables. His attorneys also noted it was “not news” that their client might have become exposed as he shifted around during a massage.

In a later statement to The Sun, the lawyers clarified that the “not news” statement didn’t refer to the accounts of the massage therapists themselves but instead to the “reasonable conclusion that accidental exposure” is possible during more than 10 years of therapy sessions. In a new statement, which Clare said was made in response to an article taking a different angle, Tucker expressed his “absolute respect” for massage therapists, crediting them with helping him stay in playing shape and saying they deserve to work in “a safe and respectable environment.”

Dalglish, the former executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the more recent statement reflects a “sophistication” in Clare Locke’s strategy, and its attention to public relations.

“My guess is they wanted to make clear football players get a lot of massages, they have to,” she said. “They wanted to do whatever they could to position their client as respectful.”

While some media lawyers declined to speak about their experience with or views of the firm, it drew praise from one staunch advocate for free speech who regularly defends media outlets against defamation suits.

“It’s a serious law firm, a first-rate law firm, and an educated law firm as to libel law,” said renowned First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams. “They are not just a worthy opponent, but a threatening one to defendants.”

Abrams, who successfully defended The New York Times’ publication of the confidential Pentagon Papers, said many libel cases in the past were brought by lawyers without expertise in the niche field.

“Someone gets angry, they call their lawyer,” he said, and not always one with specialized knowledge of defamation law. “That was good for me on the other side.”

Still, he and others say, Clare Locke’s rise comes at a worrisome time for the media as officials, including President Trump, have called for a loosening of defamation laws that they say overly protect reporters.

Clare’s wife and business partner, Libby Locke, has been particularly outspoken on the subject, despite the fact that the firm has won major defamation cases under the laws as they currently stand.

Amy Kristin Sanders, a professor of First Amendment studies at the Penn State journalism school, said she has “no doubt” that Clare Locke is looking for a case that would lead to the Supreme Court reconsidering the landmark decision, New York Times v. Sullivan.

To win a defamation case, the 1964 decision requires public officials, later expanded to all public figures, to prove a defendant didn’t just report derogatory information but bore “actual malice” by knowingly publishing a falsehood or recklessly disregarding whether it was false.

Two justices, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, have urged its reconsideration.

Clare, noting the firm doesn’t only represent wealthy, prominent people, said Sullivan sets such a high bar that getting justice reputations harmed by flawed reporting can be prohibitively costly.

“The press has an enormous amount of power over people’s reputations,” Clare said. “There has to be accountability.”

Sanders said efforts to overturn Sullivan are part of a rise in anti-press rhetoric, serving “to undermine the public’s trust in journalism” and “discourage people from speaking out critically.”

Sanders said making it easier to win a defamation suit can stifle the free flow of information, particularly for freelancers, independent journalists and others without the resources to defend themselves in a costly litigation battle.

“It’s dangerous in a democratic society to see these really public calls for the repeal of Sullivan,” she said. “It has a very robust chilling effect on the freedom of expression.”

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