Stalwart Defender: Jeffrey Douglas on 30 Years Fighting for Free Expression

“If you had told me in 1995 that I would be on the FSC board for 30 years, I would have laughed out loud,” says Jeffrey Douglas.

Laughing out loud turns out to be a forte for the stalwart industry defender. Even after decades on the frontlines defending the industry and free speech against what he has called “the war on human sexuality,” he remains upbeat, good-humored and optimistic.

According to Kink.com founder Peter Acworth, who served on the Free Speech Coalition board of directors from 2011 to 2016, Douglas’ wry sense of humor strongly informs his attitude and work.

“He seems always to see the amusing side of any particular situation, particularly with respect to the U.S. government,” says Acworth. “When finding something surprising, he will open his eyes wide, shake his head quickly and then get into some deep reflection of prior case law.”

Those deep reflections are not some abstract intellectual exercise. Helming the FSC board for three decades has repeatedly placed Douglas at the epicenter of key battles to protect the adult industry and its future.

“He’s consistently working behind the scenes, tackling some of the toughest challenges our community faces, from banking discrimination to age verification,” says SegPay CEO Cathy Beardsley, who currently serves as FSC Board treasurer. “Yet his name is rarely in the spotlight. Most people don’t even realize who’s been tirelessly advocating on behalf of the industry all along.”

Which is exactly why XBIZ is commemorating Douglas’ 30th anniversary as FSC board chair with this special look back at his life and career. Because the more you learn about Jeffrey Douglas, the clearer it becomes that none of the impactful advocacy and impressive achievements that have marked his three-decade volunteer stint heading up the industry’s trade association would be possible without the genuine passion, energetic commitment, warmth and humor of the real person behind those efforts.

Early Influences

Jeffrey Douglas was born in Riverside, California in 1956. When he was four, his family moved to Santa Barbara, where he grew up. Of the three area high schools, two were all-white. Santa Barbara High School, which Douglas attended, was majority Hispanic, as well as including all of the African American and Asian students in the district.

“My parents self-identified as liberal, but their progressiveness was superficial,” he notes. “The community was pretty progressive, but the structural racism of the community was patently obvious.”

Douglas absorbed at least some of his parents’ liberal attitudes, but soon expanded his intellectual and moral horizons.

“By the time I was twelve, I was unambiguously opposed to the Vietnam war, and a supporter of Robert Kennedy,” he recalls. “I attended a speech of his in Santa Barbara, the day before his assassination.”

Douglas is quick to differentiate between the late RFK and his son, current United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., at whose name he shudders.

Growing up, Douglas had become aware of First Amendment issues connected with anti-war protests, but attending college at the University of California, Berkeley opened up a new dimension of thinking about such matters. A decade earlier, the hugely influential Free Speech Movement on the Berkeley campus had ignited the political awakening of American college students in the 1960s.

“I really grew up when I went to Berkeley,” he says. “I was educated in free expression theory, as well as the tensions which free expression can provoke. I thought of myself as a leftist until I arrived at Cal Berkeley and discovered an entire political spectrum way to the left of me. I then saw myself as a moderate — until I went to law school at UCLA and discovered I was on the radical, if not lunatic, fringe.”

Finding His Calling

Law school had always been the plan. In fact, Douglas latched onto a very specific career path as a kid, before he even really understood what he was getting into. Fortunately, his instincts turned out to be dead-on.

“I became fixed upon being a criminal defense attorney very early on, and declared my intentions in my junior high school yearbook,” he remembers. “Nothing else in law school stimulated any interest for me.”

UCLA Law offered an option to clerk for a semester at a nonprofit or government agency. Douglas seized the opportunity.

“I worked for the state public defender’s office, handling indigent criminal appeals,” he says. “After I completed my first writing assignment, a reply brief to the attorney general’s opposition, on the bus home I realized that I really enjoyed the work and was good at it. My sense of relief was enormous. If I had not enjoyed criminal defense, I had no back-up plan.”

As it turned out, he would not need one.

“I am a vocal and zealous advocate for free expression,” Douglas says. “However, my free expression practice is from the perspective of a criminal defense attorney. That is, adult industry clients consult me for compliance guidance and risk evaluation. I do not sue anyone and I do not draft, or even read, contracts.

“Criminal defense was my first ‘cause,’ and continues to inspire and define me,” he affirms.

Adult 101

After graduating from law school in 1982, Douglas joined a Los Angeles-area law firm as an associate. There, he encountered adult industry clients for the first time.

“My mentor’s partner was one of a handful of lawyers in California who represented the industry,” he recalls. “I inherited his practice — except that many clients fled to other lawyers. They felt, reasonably, that I was too young and inexperienced.”

How much did Douglas know about the industry when he first dipped his toe in those legal waters?

“I think the technical term is ‘diddly squat,’” he laughs. “Everything I learned about the sector, I learned from my clients. Within a couple of years of inheriting the practice, I represented folks in every sector of the creation and distribution network, from the creative artists and manufacturers — publishers and video companies — to the wholesale distributors, mail-order companies and retail outlets. It was quite an education.”

Despite his “radical fringe” politics, Douglas had to overcome plenty of preconceptions about the adult world.

“I had all the casual prejudices against pornography that are so common, especially since the first-wave anti-porn feminist movement rose in prominence when I was at Cal,” he says. “One of the first bias bubbles that burst was the intellectual challenge of condemning an entire industry for demeaning portrayals of women, when about 40% of the material being produced was gay male. I rapidly realized that while certainly 80-90% of the porn being produced was, essentially, crap, so was 80-90% of all pop culture! As succinctly stated by Annie Sprinkle, the solution to crappy porn was and is better porn, not banning porn.”

It did not take long for Douglas’ passion for criminal defense to kick in, once confronted with unjust infringement on clients’ First Amendment rights.

“It took about five seconds to recognize that whatever negative views one had toward pornography, the would-be censors were far more damaging than the porn itself possibly could be,” he says. “Law-enforcement censors were, at their essence, profoundly wrong and dangerous. Opposing them was an honor.”

Working with adult industry clients, Douglas found himself surprised by two things.

“First, how ordinary they were,” he says. “The stereotypes were grotesquely wrong. My clients were from many backgrounds, had diverse interests and aspirations. The other surprise was how little commitment they had toward First Amendment principles. They were perfectly okay with being censored — as long as the rules were clear. It was the complete vagueness of the law on obscenity that was the burden, not the abstraction of government intrusion into free expression.”

Initially, Douglas represented retail outlets being prosecuted for violating licensing rules, hours restrictions, location limits, zoning and “red light” abatement actions, which can be used to shut down and padlock adult businesses as nuisances.

“As a baby lawyer, just a couple of years out of school, I successfully challenged an LA County ordinance requiring a license for a bookstore, but not a magazine store — bizarre, I know!” he recounts. “Under my guidance, a client opened a ‘magazine store.’ No books, just periodicals. But an inspector felt that one periodical’s covers were too sturdy to be a magazine, and therefore cited the store for not having a license. I argued that the distinction between books and magazines was unconstitutionally arbitrary. The judge agreed and struck down the countywide ordinance.”

Besides the joy of winning, working on First Amendment litigation introduced the young attorney to the pleasure of citing Supreme Court dissents rather than just majority opinions — as well as Shakespeare and Plato.

“It involves more abstractions and intellectual analysis,” Douglas explains. “And boy oh boy, is that fun!”

For Douglas, this would become one of the less tangible but still uplifting rewards of working on cases that touch upon basic legal rights.

“In pro bono work I did defending protestors after the murder of George Floyd by police, I was able to cite Aristotle as well,” he shares. “The judge ruled that the Beverly Hills ‘emergency’ ordinance was unconstitutional and the 24 defendants walked away free, with all charges dismissed. Ah, bliss!

“The three lawyers on the case all agreed that this kind of work was what had drawn us to law school in the first place,” he adds.

‘A Life-Changing Experience’

Had Douglas lost the “magazine store” case, his client might have faced a fine or potentially store closure. However, he soon found himself handling cases in which the prosecution was seeking months in jail — or in his first federal cases, years in prison.

“That was profound,” he remembers. “I think my first experience of that was handling animal rights protestors who broke into a UCLA lab housing primates for brain experimentation. They videotaped the animals suffering, provided the footage to CNN and then locked themselves inside. It was heart-rending material — the trial court judge refused to allow the jury to see the film, ruling that it was so disturbing that the prosecution could not get a fair trial if the jury saw the video. The Los Angeles city attorney wanted six months’ jail for each of the dozen or so defendants.”

One of the most impactful, memorable, high-profile and career-defining cases with which Douglas was directly involved in those early years was the notorious McMartin Preschool trial, which ran from 1987 to 1990.

Known for setting off the “Satanic panic” of the late 1980s, the case involved 78-year-old school founder Virginia McMartin and six other preschool teachers who were charged, collectively, with hundreds of counts of child molestation.

“While our client, Miss Virginia, was charged with only three counts, the preliminary examination lasted over 18 months,” Douglas recalls. “I babysat the case for my mentor, Bradley Brunon, while he handled other matters as the prelim dragged on. I learned enormous amounts from observing some of the best and worst lawyering imaginable.”

The case, which received worldwide publicity, alleged satanic ritual killings of animals, rape of hundreds of preschool children and the creation of CSAM. None of the allegations proved true.

“The children, coached by private parties and law enforcement, were terrible witnesses, alleging absurdities like being raped in an airplane and coming back to the preschool by parachute, or being raped in a motorboat by frogmen who swam ashore, leaving the preschooler to pilot the boat back to Manhattan Beach, walking to school and then being picked up by the parent,” Douglas elaborates. “Another child alleged that he had been forced to orally copulate an elephant — not a man in an elephant suit, because the elephant’s spine scraped the room’s ceiling. The defense was not allowed to question the child about how the elephant got through the room’s normal doors.

“The press covered this testimony as if it were plausible, or even possible,” he notes.

After more than 16 months of such bizarre testimony, two of the three prosecuting deputy district attorneys went to the Los Angeles Times and stated that their office was prosecuting innocent people. Those DDAs were removed from the case, and a judge ordered all defendants to stand trial, but eventually most charges were dismissed, and the remaining two defendants were acquitted.

Douglas says the experience made him lose faith in the media’s reporting of criminal cases.

“The economic forces underlying media business models require a presumption of guilt in the coverage of criminal cases,” he notes glumly. “There is minimal effort to provide balance in high-profile cases, and none whatsoever in the everyday criminal cases which make the papers.”

After 43 years of criminal defense, Douglas says, he finds it almost impossible to select the “most important” cases he has handled.

“I have represented people who have done unimaginably horrible things, and I have represented people who were legally and morally innocent of the charges against them,” Douglas reflects. “But mostly I have represented people who were ‘in between.’ That is, they had done wrong or illegal things, but were over-charged, with the government alleging much greater culpability than they actually bore.

“Every client I have represented felt that their case was the most important — and they were right,” he says. “Being criminally prosecuted is a life-changing experience.”

Origin Story: The Rise of FSC

In 1990, under the George H.W. Bush administration, the Department of Justice’s Operation Woodworm targeted the biggest adult studios in what was effectively an attempt to shut down the industry. In response, adult stakeholders created the Free Speech Legal Defense Fund, which would later be renamed Free Speech Coalition.

“FSC was never explicitly ad hoc, but the experience of six or so prior adult industry trade groups had demonstrated that such groups tended to last only until the external crisis ended,” Douglas notes. “So when the Woodworm cases ended in 1994 — largely resolved by plea agreements quite favorable to the industry — interest in FSC plunged to nothing. Membership shrank and donations dried up. There was so little interest that there were not enough nominees to fill the vacancies on the board of directors.”

Still, when FSC chose a new board of directors at a January 1995 general membership meeting in Las Vegas, Douglas was among them.

“We came up with 26 ‘A through Z’ internal issues we felt needed to be addressed,” he recalls. “We then set about trying to address those problems. FSC had only one staff person: our administrator, Carol Belitz. All the policy execution was performed by the directors ourselves. It was very challenging.”

Nevertheless, Douglas says, he was “unrealistically optimistic” that the organization could and would continue.

“The need for a unified industry voice and a group advocating to improve the quality of life for the folks earning a living in the industry seemed self-evident,” he points out. “However, most people who become pornographers are not predisposed to join a trade association. There were many years when the survival of FSC was a real question.”

Apathy v. Optimism

Douglas’ reminiscence of that period touches upon two themes highly relevant to his work over the past 30 years. One is an issue that continues to the present day: In contrast to manufacturers, distributors and retailers in other industries, many adult industry stakeholders seem either unaware of how FSC’s work impacts their ability to do business, or else simply unwilling to participate in or contribute to those efforts.

“When I have spoken to other trade association executives, they may have problems getting people to agree to the right level of funding for certain projects, but getting a high level of membership, if not participation, is not a problem,” Douglas observes. “If you retail smoking products, or waterbeds or mobile phones, there is no question you will join that group’s trade association. The necessity is too obvious to debate.

“Yet in a highly regulated industry like ours, where our members are under constant scrutiny from committedly hostile public and private would-be censors, most businesses do not join FSC,” he continues. “There has always been a pervasive attitude that someone else should take the burden of funding the activities of your own advocates. ‘Let Aylo take care of it!’ — and before that, Mindgeek or Flynt or Vivid Video — is what I have heard countless times. For every full paying FSC member, there are scores of freeloaders, gaining the benefits of our efforts but declining to pay a fair share.”

Despite that attitude, Douglas notes wryly, when crises arise, the freeloaders have greater expectations of the organization than its actual members.

“When COVID struck, the industry expected that we would provide answers to everything,” he says. “We were expected to develop protocols that would allow resumption of production with no risk to the production community. When we put on video seminars to announce best practices throughout the crisis, hundreds of producers participated — but less than 5% were members. Of course, it was the non-members who were the most demanding and imperious!”

The other topic is that “unrealistic optimism” with which Douglas approaches most such obstacles. What drives that outlook?

“Optimism makes daily life more pleasant,” Douglas says simply. “As the immortal philosopher Meredith Wilson said in his magnum opus, ‘The Music Man,’ ‘A coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man only 500.’ When I awake and expect a good day, I am more content than awakening expecting a poor day. But I suspect there is no real reason. That is just who I am.”

Greatest Hits

Over three decades, Douglas has led and contributed to FSC efforts on numerous issues impacting the adult industry. Listing all of these would require a lengthy volume, but sampling even a handful of the organization’s most prominent, memorable and effective campaigns goes a long way toward illustrating Douglas’ and FSC’s cumulative impact.

In 1996, for instance, legislators packed numerous “riders” into a “must pass” federal spending bill. Among these provisions was the Child Pornography Prevention Act, which radically redefined the term in such a way that it could include even media without real minors or real sex.

“As long as it ‘appeared to be’ a minor and it ‘appeared to be’ sex, that violated the law and required 15 years mandatory imprisonment,” Douglas explains. “In other words, both ‘child’ and ‘pornography’ had been stripped from the definition of ‘child pornography.’”

Douglas prepared a list of award-winning mainstream movies like “The Last Picture Show” and “The Tin Drum” that could suddenly be prosecuted under the new law, but the office of Sen. Orrin Hatch, the CPPA’s sponsor, simply responded that U.S. attorney offices could be counted on not to prosecute “legitimate” movies.

Historically, such language has been used to exclude adult entertainment from any such protections, so nobody in the industry felt reassured. Unfortunately, despite the potential impact on mainstream, it looked like FSC would have to go this one alone.

“The groups who, in the past, had stood in for the adult industry and challenged censorious laws — such as the American Library Association and several different periodical distributors — wanted nothing to do with challenging a law expanding the definition of child pornography,” Douglas recalls. “The topic was viewed as radioactive. So in the end, FSC itself challenged the law.”

That decision proved divisive within the industry, and even within the FSC board itself.

“There was reasonable concern that this campaign would be used to argue that the adult industry was supportive of child pornography,” Douglas notes.

Nevertheless, Douglas and FSC hired veteran First Amendment and criminal defense attorney H. Louis Sirkin to challenge the law. Douglas had met Sirkin as a fresh new lawyer, just after joining the First Amendment Lawyers Association at a meeting in San Francisco.

“Jeffrey immediately impressed with me as being a lawyer who cared,” Sirkin remembers of that early encounter. “I also could tell he believed very strongly in the First Amendment and was eager to learn all he could to protect free speech.”

While Sirkin handled trial duties, Douglas coordinated strategy, recruited additional plaintiffs and addressed the media. He served as the sole client representative and supervised, administratively, the litigation. The process was lengthy but ultimately resolved in 2002 by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Louis Sirkin made all legal decisions in terms of strategy and tactics but was generous enough to consult with me and allow me to review his pleadings,” Douglas says. “We lost at the trial court level, won in the Ninth Circuit and then, as a consensus underdog, prevailed at the Supreme Court.

“It was the first adult industry Supreme Court win on substance, rather than procedure, in half a century,” he adds proudly. “The court had two issues before it. We won one issue on a 6-3 vote and on the other by a 7-2 vote — including Clarence Thomas!”

That victory, Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, established FSC as an important and effective force in national issues, especially in legal and congressional circles.

1997 saw FSC orchestrate a remarkably successful lobbying effort against a so-called “porn tax” bill that would have imposed a tax at every stage of creation, distribution and sale of adult entertainment and products.

“An excise tax would be imposed at manufacture, at the warehousing/wholesale stages and again at the point of retail sale,” details Douglas.

The bill’s sponsor, Democrat Charles Calderon, justified the tax by claiming a causal connection between watching pornography and abusing women and children.

“How dildos contributed to spousal and child abuse was not spelled out,” Douglas comments drily.

FSC’s campaign against the measure became the first time the industry used its media skills and talents to influence public debate.

“We sent two gorgeous, highly educated performers, Juli Ashton and Mike Horner, to Sacramento with a wooden palette of video boxes, since giving a legislator the actual movies would have violated the gift limits,” Douglas notes. “They explained to the crowded press conference that the only logical explanation for Calderon introducing such a bill was that he was completely ignorant of the actual content of adult movies.

“Sen. Calderon initially hid from the press when the FSC representatives showed up, then later chased the reporters down the hall,” Douglas recalls. “It was a public humiliation, all covered avidly by the Sacramento TV and newspaper reporters.”

FSC also employed more conventional lobbying tactics, emphasizing the loss of jobs and taxes when meeting with Republicans, then emphasizing First Amendment principles when meeting with Democrats. The organization also engaged in heavy constituent lobbying.

“People from every component of the adult industry, from actors to executives to editors and talent agents, all visited legislative offices,” Douglas shares. “For the hearing, we had about 40 industry reps in the audience and many more in the halls.”

Douglas also prepared a videotape of excerpts from Oscar-winning films, depicting violence against women and children, and contrasted those with scenes of gay and straight pornography showing loving sex.

“I shared the video with every committee member, but was refused the opportunity to play the video at the committee hearing,” Douglas says. “It was powerful stuff!”

At the committee hearing, the other groups opposing the bill, such as the MPAA and women’s groups, did not want to be associated in any way with FSC.

“They asked the committee chair to depart from normal practice and have alternating pro and opposing groups address the committee,” says Douglas. “They did not want to speak immediately before or after us. They did not even want to sit next to us at the dais.”

Still, FSC’s lobbying turned out to be astonishingly successful.

“The bill received no ‘aye’ votes!” Douglas exclaims. “The Republicans abstained and the Democrats voted no. FSC was now recognized as a legitimate and effective lobbying force. For years afterward, legislative staff would reach out to FSC about the impact newly introduced bills might have on the industry. That would have been inconceivable before the victory over the Calderon bill.

“And the impact on our ‘citizen lobbyists’ was profound,” he adds. “We, the ultimate outsiders, had been listened to. We spoke to the most powerful people in the state of California and were accepted and heard.”

The defeat helped scuttle Calderon’s bid for state attorney general but did not stop him from trying again more than a decade later, in 2008 — this time with an even bigger tax bill targeting the industry.

Calderon agreed to debate Douglas about the new bill on a call-in radio show — perhaps unwisely, considering how their first contest had ended. Most callers were skeptical of the proposal, which eventually died in committee like its predecessor.

Nor was every achievement a defensive action. In 1998, FSC partnered with Cal State Northridge’s Center for Sex Research to sponsor a three-day World Pornography Conference. With the theme “Eroticism and the First Amendment,” the event facilitated interaction and exchange of ideas between academics, lawyers, and adult performers and producers.

Alongside performer/director Will Jarvis, Douglas led in recruiting industry participants and coordinating panels.

“The title ‘World Pornography Conference’ was not hyperbole,” says Douglas. “We had scholars from every continent except Antarctica, where both the pornography industry and its academic institutions are dreadfully underdeveloped.”

According to Douglas, the psychological impact on the industry participants was profound.

“Here pornographers, the ultimate outsiders, were invited to mingle on equal footing with the ‘church’ of academia in this academic exploration of the industry and its creativity,” he observes. “It was a turning point in many people’s lives.”

The event received significant mainstream media coverage, including in Time magazine, in a piece titled “Porn Goes Mainstream” — which sums up one of the main goals of the conference: encouraging open discourse on a subject previously avoided as taboo. By that metric and others, the conference was a clear success.

In the 2010s, a major battle played out in California across proposed state legislation, attempted Cal/OSHA regulations and even a highly contested ballot measure. This was the fight over making condom use mandatory in adult content.

“Lacking any empirical backing, several groups supported a mandatory condom policy for the production of adult movies,” Dougals recalls. “The LA County director of public health, Dr. Jonathan Fielding, once told me, with a straight face, that he had the power to prevent the sale and distribution of hardcore movies if condoms were not ‘prominently displayed.’ His ignorance was almost outweighed by his arrogance. Nothing came of that power fantasy.”

Other entities were more tenacious, however. Michael Weinstein of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), nominally a nonprofit, sought to be “the porn czar,” as Douglas puts it.

“He was utterly committed to more than mandatory condoms,” Douglas says. “He wanted to destroy the structures set up to facilitate HIV testing and demanded that the industry rely on condoms alone. He aggressively lobbied Cal/OSHA to amend its rules to require condoms, and was supported by a small group of activists at UCLA Public Health.

“For years, Cal OSHA held hearings based on AHF complaints, but the information presented by FSC and allied groups established the safety and efficacy of the on-set practices and testing protocols FSC endorsed,” he adds. “The fact that there were only two on-set transmissions of HIV over a 20-year period, and the STD rate among performers was lower than the general population, undermined the AHF arguments. The Cal/OSHA Board repeatedly overruled staff recommendations and declined to issue anti-industry regulations.”

AHF then turned to the California legislature. Year after year, bills were introduced to mandate condom use — but failed due to the evidence presented by FSC. Finally, AHF tried the ballot box and achieved its first victory in 2012, through an LA County ballot initiative.

“Measure B not only required condom use but created a system to refuse filming permits unless the production company swore to use condoms and employ a required ‘education’ program that production companies would enforce on the actors,” Douglas notes.

As a result, adult filmmakers — predictably — stopped seeking film permits, and much production fled the county.

AHF then floated a statewide measure on the 2016 California ballot: Proposition 60. That initiative would not only have required condom use in adult filmmaking, but also created a ‘bounty’ on noncompliant films, allowing anyone to sue producers.

“FSC took on the unwinnable role as opponent to this popular measure,” says Douglas. “Led by FSC’s then-executive director, Eric Leue, and assisted by the extraordinary Mike Stabile and Siouxsie Q, we set up a grassroots campaign. Creators and performers went onto dozens of college campuses and discussed the actual terms contained in Prop 60. We campaigned endlessly.”

FSC sought and received editorial support from newspapers across the state, and ultimately —despite being outspent six-to-one — the organization won. Prop 60 failed by a significant margin.

“That ended Michael Weinstein’s crusade against FSC and the adult industry,” Douglas says with satisfaction.

The most protracted battle in FSC history involved legal challenges to the federal labeling and record-keeping law 18 USC 2257.

“FSC fought multiple battles over many, many years, challenging the constitutionality of 18 USC 2257,” confirms Douglas. “Finally, in 2009, we initiated a challenge that took until 2021 to finally resolve.”

FSC alleged in the long-running case that 2257 subjected adult companies to an unfair and unnecessary burden. It allowed warrantless searches, and criminal prosecutions for even minor record-keeping violations, such as a mis-alphabetized paper or missing address.

At the time, Douglas told XBIZ, “These regulations were never about stopping child pornography. They were designed by the Reagan and Bush administrations to be used to punish and pressure adult producers when traditional prosecutions were blocked by the First Amendment.”

FSC went to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals three times in the case, with attorneys J. Michael Murray and Lorraine Baumgardner fighting the battle on FSC’s behalf for over a decade.

Douglas credits the duo for their “brilliant lawyering.” Murray, a prominent First Amendment and criminal defense attorney, says in turn that it was a pleasure to work very closely with Douglas over the course of what turned out to be an almost 12-year fight.

“Jeffrey Douglas was just absolutely superb in helping steer that litigation, in brainstorming and helping to frame the issues,” Murray affirms. “He was able to provide the court with a remarkable level of background and knowledge as to the impact of 2257, including some of the searches that the FBI did.

“He was with us in Philadelphia when we went to trial in the case, and he flew in, I remember, late at night,” Murray recalls. “We were trying to prepare for the morning session and for his testimony. Of course, by the time he got to the hotel, the first thing he had to do was call home and make sure that his child was OK, and then we worked late into the night working on the case.”

Ultimately, large parts of 2257 were declared unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds. In 2021, FSC declared victory, informing the industry that the FBI could no longer demand access to their records via random, warrantless inspections.

“You are now less likely to be charged with a crime under 2257 or 2257A and even less likely to be successfully prosecuted,” the organization announced in a triumphant statement.

The Win Column

In case it was not made sufficiently clear in the introduction to this article, all of Douglas’ work on behalf of Free Speech Coalition and the adult industry has been performed pro bono.

“A surprisingly large fraction of people in the industry assume that I am a paid employee of FSC, rather than an unpaid volunteer,” he acknowledges. “Likewise, lots of folks express surprise that I am a criminal defense attorney, and not a contracts or business formation attorney.”

How does Douglas balance his FSC work with that private practice?

“Badly!” he laughs. “There have been many times over the years where I neglected my private practice — not my clients, but my business. But the work for FSC has special gratification for me. It has always been difficult for me to say ‘no’ to requests for my time.”

Witnesses readily corroborate this “failing.”

“I first met Jeffrey shortly after an FSC fundraiser at the Pure Pleasure Bookstore in Las Vegas in the early ’90s,” recalls industry attorney Allan B. Gelbard. “I had been working as Seymore Butts’ cameraman and editor and was detained by the Las Vegas vice cops, who arrested everyone involved in the event — except me. However, the police did confiscate my video camera as ‘evidence.’”

Douglas then introduced himself to Gelbard as an attorney with FSC.

“I believe he may have been the first lawyer I ever spoke to,” says Gelbard. “He told me FSC would be providing me a lawyer to represent me if I was charged and to help me get my camera back. That lawyer ended up being Dominic Gentile. I was never charged, the camera was returned and the rest, as they say, is history.

“During my law school years, Jeffrey was incredibly supportive,” he continues. “He always made himself available to answer any questions I had. He continues to do so to this day. After I got my license, he facilitated my joining the First Amendment Lawyers Association. It is 100% safe to say that I would not be an attorney today if not for Jeffrey Douglas.”

Industry attorney Lawrence Walters also cites Douglas’ principled generosity.

“In one particularly memorable case, our firm represented an adult platform operator charged with obscenity in Polk County, Florida, which was the first time that obscenity charges were used against user-generated content,” Walters shares. “While we were able to get the client out of jail by posting 300 separate bail bonds — one for each obscenity count — the prosecutor put him back in jail right before the Christmas holidays for allegedly violating pretrial detention conditions by continuing to operate the platform while the case was pending.”

Pursuing the client’s freedom required the immediate filing of numerous lengthy habeas corpus petitions in the trial court, appellate court and the Florida Supreme Court.

“Jeff graciously offered to help this effort through the Free Speech Coalition by quickly filing an amicus brief with the court, explaining how punishing a defendant for engaging in expressive activities before any materials were found to be obscene violated the First Amendment and constituted a prior restraint on speech,” explains Walters. “The appellate court ultimately ordered the client’s release in time for a New Year’s Eve celebration.

“While everyone else was on vacation for the holidays, Jeff jumped into action and helped secure the freedom of an innocent man,” Walters attests. “His dedication to defending free speech will not be forgotten.”

Yet despite sharing his time and expertise so freely, Douglas has maintained his criminal defense practice in parallel to his FSC duties for three decades now, the majority of his legal career. In the course of those 30 years, he has, like all lawyers, won some and lost some.

“As a law student, I was told of a banner in the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office that read, ‘God protect me from an innocent client,’” Douglas remarks. “There is a fundamental truth in that. The stress and pressure is immeasurably greater when you believe your client is fully innocent than when you merely believe that the prosecution lacks proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”

This has led Douglas to fight for clients who would otherwise have been figuratively and literally condemned.

“I got a reversal of a murder conviction where the trial lawyer was a catastrophe,” he remembers. “Eleven of his clients were on California’s death row, when no other lawyer had more than two clients sentenced to death. The finding of ineffective assistance of counsel by that lawyer in my case opened the door for many of his other clients to be able to challenge their convictions.

“I have gotten quick acquittals in several child molestation cases where my clients were facing years or decades in prison and a lifetime registration as sex offenders,” Douglas notes. “Those verdicts mean a great deal to me. A year after one of those, the prosecutor introduced me to a colleague by saying, ‘Here’s the guy that prevented me from convicting an innocent man.’ That was a once-in-a-lifetime, glorious moment.”

Acquittals in state and federal obscenity cases have been particularly gratifying for Douglas.

“I do not believe that obscenity laws should exist,” he states. “There is something particularly wrong with imprisoning an artist or seller of art on the grounds that the art is ‘too bad’ without any way for the artist or seller to know what the standards of ‘badness’ are. In all American jurisprudence, only obscenity is a crime where the only way to know you have committed a crime is after the jury tells you. That is not consistent with a lawful government.”

Douglas says he has also found great satisfaction striking down municipal and county ordinances, plus the occasional state law.

“Such results are particularly gratifying since the results protects not only my current clients, but also future people wanting to express themselves without government interference,” he explains.

FSC Executive Director Alison Boden sees this motivation as underlying much of Douglas’ work for the trade association.

“A few years ago, I asked Jeffrey what made him want to become a Free Speech Coalition board member,” Boden shares. “He told me that, as a criminal defense attorney, the potential to improve peoples’ lives is very gratifying but limited to a relatively small number of individuals. Through FSC, he felt, he could change the quality of a large group of people’s lives for the better — and he was right.”

Of course, no attorney can win every case.

“Wins tend to blend together,” admits Douglas. “I have much more detailed and distinct memories of every loss. A very hardcore criminal defense attorney said to me that you never forget your losses. He said, ‘A part of me is in custody with every client that goes to prison.’ I have found that to be true. When a client is imprisoned, I experience a kind of loss of liberty as well — although absolutely nothing comparable to the actual convicted person.”

The 2008 conviction of the late Paul Little, aka Max Hardcore, on federal obscenity charges was deeply disheartening to Douglas.

“Even the government lawyers expressed disgust at the entire procedure,” he recalls. “The lead prosecutor, a former FBI agent turned assistant United States attorney, told me she would retire if required to handle another obscenity case. Shortly after the verdict, three of the jurors came to the defense hotel to apologize to Paul and told the defense team that they had been bullied into changing their votes from not guilty to guilty. The prosecution relied on perjurious testimony of a distributor. The government demanded that the jury convict ‘Max Hardcore,’ Paul’s onscreen persona, as if that character were Paul himself. I get nauseated just recalling the details of that case.”

Douglas’ passion for justice comes through even more clearly when he describes defeat.

“There is no way just to forget and move on from losses,” he says. “The criminal defense lawyer is your champion when the resources of government are turned against you. When the case caption reads ‘The People of the State of California versus You,’ or even more intimidatingly, ‘The United States of America versus You,’ your lawyer is your only hope.”

Fortunately for Douglas’ clients, he is determined to live up to those expectations.

“Jeffrey Douglas is an extraordinary lawyer who exemplifies the noblest qualities of our profession,” says Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mark E. Windham. “I have seen him struggle on behalf of individuals who are reviled by the public, but Mr. Douglas sees their best human qualities, presenting them beautifully to the court, so that the court can place the aberrant acts in the context of their whole lives when passing sentence.

“In People v. Kaleb Blakey, et al., I saw him successfully fight for the constitutional right to speech against an ordinance which would have diminished that right,” Windham adds. “His brilliant brief and oral argument cut through the many superficially attractive but legally incorrect justifications offered in support of an unconstitutional law. He helped this court see this when other lawyers’ work would likely have fallen short.”

Judge Jennifer Kinsley of the Ohio First District Court of Appeals, who has known Douglas since 2000, is equally admiring.

“What really sets Jeffrey apart and defines who he is, to his core, is his ability to empathize with people,” she says. “Jeffrey has the biggest heart. Like no one else I’ve ever known, Jeffrey can immediately connect with a person and make them feel cared for. He can see beyond an allegation or an act to what makes each person uniquely human. Jeffrey is someone who truly loves his clients. That’s a rare quality.”

Beyond the Job

So, what is a typical day like for Jeffrey Douglas?

“It depends so much on the status of trial or motion work in my criminal practice,” he says. “As an important hearing date approaches or even more so if a trial is imminent, I work long days, often into the evening. During trial, 16-hour days are common. Between those events, I work the more typical 8 a.m.-to-5 p.m. day.”

As it turns out, law is the family business. His wife is also a criminal defense attorney, working as an LA County alternate public defender.

“It is not uncommon that we are both in bed, each with a laptop open, drafting pleadings or doing research,” Douglas shares.

Still, he has reduced his workload somewhat from years past.

“Parenting has taken up a significant amount of time,” he concedes. “Marriage and children. I started both of those rather later than my peers. I was 45 when we got married and 51 when I became a father. Nothing compares to the importance of the roles of husband and father in my life.”

Kinsley remembers trying a case with Douglas in Tampa, Florida, that was scheduled to take place for several weeks.

“Jeffrey did not want to be away from his family for that long,” Kinsley recalls. “So they came with us! I have really fond memories of holding his infant child in a Chili’s restaurant in Tampa after a long day of trial. It struck me as such a beautiful thing that Jeffrey was willing to blend his work and family life and to expose his young child to the valuable work he does. And holding his sweet baby was very calming after a hard day in the courtroom!”

Even in the parental role, however, Douglas has found ways to leverage his professional strengths.

“Given the perverse side of me that enjoys committee work and group processes, I loved being Mr. PTA when my kid was in elementary school,” he laughs. “I still am a constant volunteer, but fortunately the demands on even an active high-school parent are nothing compared to the early years.”

Also fortunate, Douglas says, is Alison Boden’s tenure as FSC’s executive director.

“She has assumed many roles I used to play and is so much better at those things than I could ever have been,” he enthuses. “The last decade of being FSC board chair has been much easier than the first two. The quality and involvement of my fellow directors has been so much greater than in the early years.

“Similarly, we have had fantastically talented and committed staff members for more than a decade,” Douglas notes. “They have taken on many of the responsibilities that I undertook by necessity — without the experience and skill that our staff has — for the first 15 or so years.”

Does all of this add up to actual free time? If so, how does he spend it?

“I’m a committed reader,” Douglas reveals. “I typically go through more than a book per week, either a traditional tangible book or audiobook. I have a library of several hundred — thousand, perhaps — books. I also love film and have an equally large library of DVDs. Outmoded technology has never fazed me! I am a slow adopter of new technology. Travel is also a source of great satisfaction, although I have not traveled anywhere near as much as I hope to do in the future.”

Uncertain Times

Between an unpredictable Supreme Court and well-funded anti-porn groups, the industry faces undeniable challenges going forward. By both necessity and inclination, Douglas has spent plenty of time thinking about what may lie ahead for the people and companies he has been working with for so long.

“This is a time as challenging as any the industry has faced in the 40-plus years of my involvement,” he states. “Our opponents have never been as close to the seats of power as they are now, and we are under the rule of the most ideologically distorted Supreme Court in almost two centuries.

“Yet while any specific business can fail or be destroyed by government, it is demand that keeps the adult industry growing and developing,” Douglas offers. “So while the players may be drastically different in five or 10 years, the industry itself will continue to provide people with entertainment, fantasy and the tools to play that fantasy out in their bedrooms or playrooms.

“That is the core of the industry’s strength and ability to survive and thrive,” he declares, decades of experience lending quiet authority to his words. “Demand for our content and products is unaffected by the regulatory environment or law enforcement activity. Consumers want our content and they will find a way to access it — no matter what Sen. Mike Lee of Utah thinks.”

Helping the industry access and actualize that strength has been Douglas’ business for 30 years now — though as noted above, that business has largely been conducted behind the scenes, in near anonymity.

“Much of my work for FSC has been behind a curtain,” he agrees. “So much has involved making alliances, quiet persuasion and improving the internal structure of the organization. For each of the great FSC events I’ve described, there have been scores of near-silent victories.

“There have been times when our issues are not taken seriously enough because of pornography’s overall reputation,” Douglas admits. “Nevertheless, because of the exceptionally high quality of our work over the years, in litigation, lobbying and policy, FSC seems to have earned significant respect.”

Of course, organizations rarely accomplish that unless the people who make them run are likewise worthy of respect, imbuing collaborative institutions with their personal ethos and passion. Douglas wears his on his sleeve.

“I have always identified strongly with the underdog,” he says. “I love being an advocate for the disenfranchised, the weak and the condemned. I have never regretted being a criminal defense attorney and would never change my career path if given the opportunity. That is similar to my feelings toward the adult industry. In the unlikely possibility that I had been given the opportunity to do work analogous to what I have done for FSC, but for an established institution like the MPAA, I doubt I would have pursued it.”

While Douglas has unarguably made an impact on FSC and the industry, it goes both ways. His work with FSC and representing the industry, he acknowledges, has also made an impact on him.

“I am certainly more open-minded and accepting of the infinite range of how humans express and experience sexuality directly,” he says. “I am grateful for that. ‘Normal’ now seems like a self-deception at best — and at worst, a label designed to control and alienate sexuality.

“People in power or who seek power have an incentive to narrow the range of the population’s behavior and encourage conformity,” he elaborates. “Conformity to a narrow range of behavior makes governance more efficient. The danger arises when punishment for nonconformity becomes acceptable — and nonconformity in sexuality has always tended to be treated more harshly than other forms.

“We are living in an era of extraordinary intolerance toward ‘deviance,’” Douglas cautions. “It is a drastic change from a long period of increasing tolerance. I appreciate the importance and increased responsibility involved in fighting against that current trend. It is nevertheless draining to be on the frontlines of these battles.”

Yet not so daunting as to keep the eternal optimist from emerging once again, on cue.

“I am now certain that the organization will continue long after I have left,” he reflects. “That was not a sure thing for many, many years. Also, most major players now understand the necessity of having an active and effective trade association, in contrast to widespread attitudes demonstrated for the first couple of decades of my involvement. I am proud of my contribution to that change in attitude — although much of that change has nothing whatsoever to do with me.”

Unavoidably, the L word comes up.

“Only dead people have legacies,” Douglas politely points out. “And I am still alive… I am pretty sure.”

Fair enough. But how would he like to be remembered?

Jeffrey Douglas considers this.

“As a true believer in my work, and as a kind person,” he says. “That is certainly what I aspire to be.”