James C. Goodale (born July 27, 1933) was the vice president and general counsel for The New York Times and, later, the Times' vice chairman. He is the author of Fighting for the Press: the Inside Story of the Pentagon Papers and Other Battles.< The book was named twice as the best non-fiction book of 2013 by Alan Rusbridger, editor in chief of The Guardian, and Alan Clanton, editor of the online Thursday Review. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit cited "Fighting for the Press" in its decision May 7, 2015, limiting the controversial National Security Agency (NSA) domestic phone monitoring program. He represented the Times in four of its United States Supreme Court cases, including Branzburg v. Hayes in which the Times intervened on behalf of its reporter Earl Caldwell. The other cases were New York Times v. Sullivan, New York Times Co. v. United States (the Pentagon Papers case), and New York Times Co. v. Tasini. He was the leading force behind the Times''' decision to publish the Pentagon Papers in 1971. After the Times' outside counsel, Lord Day & Lord, advised the Times against publishing classified information and quit when the United States Justice Department threatened to sue the paper to stop publication, Goodale led his own legal team and directed the strategy that resulted in winning the Supreme Court case of New York Times Co. v. United States. He has been called "the father of the reporter's privilege" because of his interpretation of the Branzburg case in the Hastings Law Journal. This led to the establishment of a reporter's privilege to protect sources in most states and federal circuits. Goodale created the specialty of First Amendment law among commercial lawyers. From 1972 to 2007, he established and chaired an annual Communications Law Seminar at the Practising Law Institute which through 2022 had over 25,000 attendees. This led to the creation of a First Amendment Bar. He continues to serve as the seminar's chairman emeritus. After he left The New York Times in 1980, he joined the law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP in New York City. There he founded a corporate group and litigation group dealing with media, intellectual property, communications and the First Amendment. These groups have represented many well-known U.S. communication entities including the New York Times, CBS, and NBC. He served as chairman of the board for the Committee