Professional Expertise

The principal in the firm, Cornish F. Hitchcock, has more than 30 years of experience representing clients in court, before administrative agencies, and before legislative bodies. Before opening the firm in 1998 Mr. Hitchcock spent 17 years at the Public Citizen Litigation Group, one of the nation's leading public interest law firms, where he initated a number of "test case" lawsuits involving constitutional law issues, challenges to federal agency decisions, shareholder rights, public access to agency records and court records, and other areas.

Mr. Hitchcock has been lead counsel in over 20 federal and state trial courts, and he has argued over 50 appeals in nine federal appeals courts and several state appellate courts. He also argued five cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and has filed amicus curiaecertiorari petitions in other cases. briefs and

Mr. Hitchcock has also had extensive experience before administrative agencies, both in drafting rulemaking petitions to change agency rules or practices, filing comments on proposed changes, as well as litigating individual cases on clients' behalf.

He also has extensive legislative experience. Over the years he has testified before Congressional committees more than 50 times. He has also drafted legislation and worked with lawmakers on issues of concern to clients.

EDUCATION

Mr. Hitchcock has a B.A. from the University of Chicago (1972) and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center (1975). Following law school and a judicial clerkship, and before joining Public Citizen Litigation Group, he spent four years at the Aviation Consumer Action Project (ACAP), a national consumer organization that seeks to advance passenger rights. During his last two years there, he served as the group's director. He then served as its Legal Director for another decade while at Public Citizen Litigation Group. In those capacities, he worked on a range of aviation and transportation issues involving economic regulation, consumer protection and air safety.

Bar and
Professional Activities

Mr. Hitchcock was elected to and served two terms (one of them as Treasurer) on the Board of Governors of the District of Columbia Bar, the mandatory bar association in this jurisdiction with over 60,000 members. He currently serves on the Committee on Admissions and Grievances of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He is a member of the American Law Institute. For five years he chaired a committe of the Federal Bar Association on consumer issues in the transportation field.

In the 1990s Mr. Hitchcock was appointed to serve on two committees convened by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences, which issued reports on strategies to promote competition in the airline industry. In 1993 he was appointed by the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense to serve on a committee that recommended ways by which DoD could effectively present its views on antitrust issues during the consolidation wave then affecting defense contractors. In the 1980s, he served on an advisory committee convened by the Federal Aviation Administration on the topic of flight/duty time rules for airline pilots, which was the first effort by a federal agency to use "negotiated rulemaking" as a means of gathering the views of private sector stakeholders regarding proposed changes to federal regulations. From 2000 to 2005 he has served as Chairman of the Consumer Advisory Board at Orbitz, an Internet travel web site.

Publications

Mr. Hitchcock has published law review articles in publications including The Univeristy of Michigan Journal of Law Reform and the Administrative Law Review. He has also published articles in the National Law Journal,Legal Times, and The Practical Lawyer. He has written and continues to update chapters on the Privacy Act and confidential business documents for A Guidebook to the Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts, which is published by Westgroup. Op-ed articles have also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and other newspapers.  For a list of his publications, click here. He has lectured at forums sponsored by the American Bar Association, the District of Columbia Bar, the Federal Bar Association and the Association of the Bar of the city of New York.

Mr. Hitchcock has discussed public policy issues in a number of forums, primarily on aviation and transportation topics, including appearances on Good Morning America, Today, Crossfire, The Larry King Show and other programs. From 1980 to 1981 he was a weekly on-air commentator during Cable News Network's first year on the air.

His community involvement includes 12 years as a Trustee of the Committee of 100 on the Federal City, Washington's oldest private urban planning committee. He also served for three years as the President of a civic association and was President of two condominium associations in the District.

Civic Activities