John F. Banzhaf III,
Professor of Law
George Washington University Law School,
2000 H Street, N.W., Suite 405
Washington, DC 20006
(202) 994-7229
Click to send email
to: Prof. Banzhaf
B.S.E.E., M.I.T.,
J.D., Columbia University,
Sc.D., Thomas Jefferson University
OTHER LINKS:
Major Professional Accomplishments
SOME STREAMING VIDEO:
Battle of the Widening Bulge, Eye on American, CBS-TV Evening News, [08/08/02] link
Law Suit Against McDonald's, Canadian TV
[03/23/02] link
Check back soon for more links
Prof. John Banzhaf has been called the "Ralph Nader of the Tobacco Industry,""The Man Who Is Taking Fat to Court" [for using legal action to fight OBESITY] "Mr. Anti-Smoking," "One of the Most Vocal and Effective Anti-Tobacco Attorneys,"a "Radical Feminist," a "Man Who Lives by his Writs," the "Father of Potty Parity, "the area's best-known 'radical' law professor," an "Entrepreneur of Litigation, [and] a Trial Lawyer's Trial Lawyer ," one of the "100 Most Powerful People in Washington," "The Man Big Tobacco and Now Fast Food Love to Hate," the lawyer "who's leading the battle against big fat," "a driving force behind the lawsuits that have cost tobacco companies billions of dollars," "the renowned and often flamboyant public-interest law professor at George Washington University," "the fastest legal gun in the East," and "a major crusader against big tobacco and now among those targeting the food industry". He's also been called a "Legal Terrorist,""a legal bomb-thrower," and a "Legal Flamethrower" -- clear indications, he says, that wrongdoes fear his legal actions.
As a young lawyer, John Banzhaf brought a legal action which required all broadcast stations to provide free time for anti-smoking messages. Subsequently, after founding Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) to serve as the legal-action arm of the antismoking community [ About ASH ] he helped drive cigarette commercials off the air, and started the nonsmokers' rights movement by first getting no-smoking sections – and then smoking bans – on airplanes and in many other public places.
Banzhaf and ASH have played a major role in the war on smoking and for nonsmokers' rights, including promoting and helping to mastermind law suits against the tobacco industry, and in defending the legal rights of nonsmokers in hundreds of legislative, administrative, and judicial proceedings. His contributions to the war on smoking have been very widely recognized [ What Others Have Said About Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) ]
Prof. Banzhaf teaches Torts , Administrative Law, Disabled People and the Law, and Law and the Deaf. He also teaches a unique world-famous course — "Legal Activism" [Law 637], which has been dubbed "suing for credit" and "Sue the Bastards" — where his law students, which the press dubbed "Banzhaf's Bandit," learn to become public interest lawyers by bringing their own legal actions [Spotlight: Professor brings the classroom to the courtroom ].
He and his students are widely known for bringing hundreds of innovative public interest legal actions including one of the leading Supreme Court environmental law suits, forcing the Cosmos Club to admit women, persuading the F.T.C. to require "corrective advertising," preventing dry cleaners from charging women more to launder their shirts ," suing former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew to recover the bribes he received, safety standards for school buses, clearer warnings on birth control pills, smoke detectors in airplane lavatories, auto bumper standards, new police procedures for dealing with spousal abuse, the end to a scheme to defraud veterans, greater roles for blacks on television, clearer labeling of foods, and many other victories.
John Banzhaf has discussed and/or debated smoking -- as well a diverse variety of legal issues, including self defense, governmental corruption, sex discrimination, auto and food safety, jury nullification, Potty Parity, drug testing, various constitutional issues, etc. -- on all of the major television evening network news programs, as well as on Face the Nation, McNeil Lehrer, Nightline, Oprah Winfrey, Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, The O'Reilly Factor, Nightwatch, Crossfire, Technopolitics, CNN News, Larry King, Hannity & Colmes, Phil Donohue, the Abrams Report, American Morning With Paula Zahn, and many other national programs both here and in other countries, in Op-Ed pieces, and in numerous programs and publications both here and around the world.
Professor Banzhaf received his undergraduate degree in
Electrical Engineering from M.I.T, and for a time worked as a scientist
and engineer, writing several published technical papers, and obtaining
two U.S. patents. At Columbia University's law school, he was an Editor
of the Law Review, obtained the first copyright ever registered on a computer
program, helped persuade Congress to amend the copyright statute to include
data processing, and developed a new mathematical technique -- now termed
the "Banzhaf Index" -- for determining voting power in complex voting situations.
link
Professor Banzhaf serves as the Faculty Advisor for the
GWU Volleyball Team [link l and link 2 ], and is a member of the
World Technology Network [http://www.wtn.net
]. He has also been in the news recently regarding using legal action
against the problem of obesity in some of the same ways he pioneered in its
use against the problem of smoking [ obesitylinks ], and he has played
a role in forcing George Washington University to discontinue its Pinkerton-operated
anonymous hotline [ link
]