. >> first amendment attorney, floyd abrams, who remitted the "new york times" in the pentagon papers cases recounts the career and represents his thoughts on current first amendment debate. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> this evening, we're delighted to have one of the greatest present living lawyers, and one the greatest lawyers the nation had by the name of floyd abrams, who just released a wonderful book, that the critics are raving about called "friend of the court: on the front

. >> first amendment attorney, floyd abrams, who remitted the "new york times" in the pentagon papers cases recounts the career and represents his thoughts on current first amendment debate. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> this evening, we're delighted to have one of the greatest present living lawyers, and one the greatest lawyers the nation had by the name of floyd abrams, who just released a wonderful book, that the critics are raving about called "friend of the court: on the front lines with the first amendment," and what we're going to be doing is a 40-minute conversation interview, and floyd has kindly agreed to open up to you'd yens questions so as many people as possible have a chance to question one of the greatest lawyers, so to kick start it, floyd, could you please tell us how this very interesting book receiving critical great reviews came about? >> first, i got a call from a legal scholar named ronald collins, a professor at the university of washington law school. he told me he was interested in doing a book about my views about certain aspects of the first ame

greatest lawyers, present living lawyers and one of the greatest lawyers of the nation by the name of floyd abrams who has just released a wonderful book by critics are raving about call a friend of the court on the front lines with the first amendment. and what we will be doing is a 40 minute conversation interview he has kindly agreed to open it up to audience questions said that many people have a chance have a chance to question one of the greatest lawyers. so he took kickstart it, could you please tell us out this very interesting book is receiving these critical and reviews came about. >> first, i got a call from a professor at the university of washington law school. he told me he was interested in doing a book about my views about

lawyers of the nation by the name of floyd abrams who has just released a wonderful book by critics are raving about call a friend of the court on the front lines with the first amendment. and what we will be doing is a 40 minute conversation interview he has kindly agreed to open it up to audience questions said that many people have a chance have a chance to question one of the greatest lawyers. so he took kickstart it, could you please tell us out this very interesting book is receiving these critical and reviews came about. >> first, i got a call from a professor at the university of washington law school. he told me he was interested in doing a book about my views about the first amendment, different sorts of cases, al ipod backcourts movements analyzed the first amendment cases. he asked me for speeches i had given in to arguments that i had engaged in and the like. and i sent many more than he wanted, i think. but certainly many more than he thought that i had. he coming up and said, have an idea. what did you publish this. you put together what you think are the most interesting

[laughter] thank us -- tell me to think floyd abrams who has impacted many of our lives and a regular basis. thank you. . . >> host: one of the things i took away from the book, which was very wonderful, by the way, and you don't say this explicitly, but what i took away the most is women in the senate use their gender when it behooves them and shy away from it when it doesn't. is that one of the points you were trying to make with this book, or what is it that you want people to take away? >> guest: well, i do think that that is partially true, but when women came into the senate, most people don't realize there were very few women in the senate up until 1990, up until 1990, only two women in the senate, so all the male senators don't know what to do with women coming into the senate, and you have women coming in at the same time as you have a very big shift in washington in terms of behavior in washington becoming more partisan and more polarized, so women come into the senate, you're in a much more partisan and polarized environment with a lot of effings, so in terms of utilizing t

the chairman of the motion picture association of america and floyd abrams.they own the rights to the title "the butler." they reregistered it as recently as 2010. why are they wrong? >> it's not that they're wrong, but it would have just said this is a movie about civil rights. 28 financiers financed the movie. and titles have been used and repeated. our understanding with them was this was just going to be a simple process. sandra bullock and mccarthy have a movie out called heat. and ten years before that bert reynolds made a movie called heat. these guys told us they were going to do the normal business day practice. i think there was an ulterior motive. >> chris, what went into that decision that they couldn't use the title? what was the consideration that went into that decision? >> it's almost 100 years it's called the title registration bureau. it was established in 1925 to set up a mechanism for easy dispute resolution were resolute scribers are, the weinstein company is obviously one of them. they've submitted titles like "the king's speech," "the a