The Wall Street Journal’s General Counsel Is Fired
The Wall Street Journal has axed Stuart Karle, the paper’s longtime general counsel who achieved some important First Amendment victories.
Karle did not disclose why he was fired in a conversation with Legal Times, but he did say he “had a spectacularly good time” helping the newspaper defend its stories. Karle had been the paper’s general counsel since 1992. Before that he worked at the Wall Street Journal as a reporter and as a lawyer at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
A journalism professor noted two of Karle’s big victories in a post on Poynter Online. In one case, a securities firm withdrew its libel suit against the paper after a judge overturned a $223 million judgment in the case. In another, he won a landmark victory that protected journalists sued under English law for stories on public figures.
Dow Jones’ new chief counsel, Mark Jackson, told Karle on Thursday that he had to leave by the end of March, the New York Observer reports. One staffer told the publication the newsroom was stunned by the decision.
