LoMonte Named Student Press Law Center Exec Director

By: E&P Staff The Student Press Law Center (SPLC) has named a new executive director, Frank Daniel LoMonte, a former Florida Times-Union and Morris News Service reporter who is now an attorney in Atlanta.

He succeeds Mark Goodman, who is leaving at the end of the year to become Knight Chair in Scholastic Journalism in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State University.

LoMonte's appointment is effective Jan. 2, 2008.

Since early 2005, LoMonte has been a member of the SPLC's Attorney Referral Network, a group of about 150 attorneys across the country who serve, on a pro bono basis, to represent student journalists facing legal conflicts.

He is an associate attorney with the Atlanta law firm Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP. His practice has focused on energy and telecommunications litigation.

LoMonte was a reporter for more than 12 years experience as a journalist, including two years as a state Capitol reporter for the Florida Times-Union, nine years as bureau chief for the Morris News Service in Atlanta, and two years as Washington correspondent for Morris.

He is a 2000 graduate of the University of Georgia School of Law. He received his bachelor's degree from Georgia State University in 1994, and also attended the University of Florida where he was editor in chief of The Independent Florida Alligator. SPLC noted he also spent two years on the staff of his high school newspaper at Buchholz High School in Gainesville, Fla.