Rox Laird Joins Nyemaster’s Appellate Blog

Nyemaster Goode is pleased to welcome long-time Des Moines Register editorial writer and Iowa courts commentator Rox Laird as a new regular contributor to its appellate blog, On Brief.

Rox will assist with keeping the blog’s readers up-to-date on cases pending before the Iowa Supreme Court as well as Iowa Supreme Court and Eighth Circuit decisions.

Rox retired from the Register last fall and, as former Register editor and NBC News president Michael Gartner recently remarked, he took with him “43 years of institutional memory and 43 years’ worth of knowledge about how this city and this state work.” Nyemaster is thrilled that Rox is bringing that knowledge to On Brief, and is certain that Iowans will be the beneficiaries.

Rox started his career at the afternoon Tribune in 1972, focusing on state, regional and local government. After the Tribune closed, he moved to the Register and joined the editorial page staff where he was the newspaper’s lead writer on the courts, the U.S. and Iowa constitutions, legal issues, prisons, and criminal justice. 

While on the editorial board, Rox specialized in writing about the First Amendment and public access to government information.Rox was a founding member of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council in 1976 and twice served as president of the council’s Board of Trustees.

Because of his influential writings and “strong voice in support of justice,” the Iowa Supreme Court honored Rox in a special session last November.