The Society of Professional Journalists has signed on to an amicus brief in Forensic Advisors v. Matrixx, a case that's in front of Maryland's highest court, the Court of Appeals.

SPJ lawyer Laurie Babinski of Baker and Hostetler provides some background: 

The case involves the owner/founder/president of a company, Forensic Advisors, that publishes a newsletter about publicly traded companies. Matrixx is seeking the owner's testimony in a defamation lawsuit Matrixx filed in Arizona against several named and unnamed defendants (not including Forensic Advisors) because the he may know the unnamed defendants' identities or have other pertinent information. The publisher sought to quash the subpoena using Maryland's shield law, but a lower court said that he had to go ahead with the deposition and invoke the shield on a question-by-question basis. The amicus brief seeks to overturn that decision and argues that, once the publisher invoked the shield law, the court should have put the burden on Matrixx to show why the shield law didn't apply before ordering the publisher to comply with the subpoena.

SPJ agreed to sign on this morning and we will post the brief when it becomes available.