E. Cutter Hughes has been a partner in the firm's Huntsville office since 1987. He practices in the areas of media law, litigation and public utility law, and has represented newspapers, radio and television stations, and public utilities for more than twenty-five years. He serves as the Alabama Editor of the Media Law Resource Center Annual 50-State Survey of Media Privacy and Related Law and has been listed for fifteen years in The Best Lawyers in America.
Cutter has represented the Electric, Gas & Water Boards of the City of Huntsville in trial and appellate litigation and has participated in seminars for TVPPA and APPA.
Experience
Cutter handles a wide variety of media cases, several of which are listed below. He has handled several important media cases on behalf of the Alabama Press Association and other news organizations which have had an impact on the law in this area. A recent example is Mary Barksdale v. Richard Allen, Director, Department of Corrections, which establishes important principles for access to public records by the public and the media.
He has also been involved at the trial and appellate levels in some groundbreaking public utility cases, several of which are listed below. Notable is the ProLiance Energy case in which a verdict of over $35,000,000 was obtained for a public utility.