Wendell R. Bird

Wendell has provided legal counsel to nonprofit organizations for over 40 years and has published close to 30 articles on nonprofit organization law and charitable contribution law. Wendell also has written chapters on nonprofit organizations for CCH’s Federal Tax Service and for a leading tax treatise. Wendell has lectured at such programs as the Washington Non-Profit Tax and Legal Conference and the AICPA’s national “Not For Profit Industry Conference.” He also served for nearly 20 years as co-chair of the American Bar Association’s Subcommittee on Charitable Contributions. For 20 years, Wendell served on the Advisory Board of the publication Taxation of Exempts. He also served on the Board of Advisors of NYU School of Law’s National Center on Philanthropy and the Law. Wendell has been recognized as a Georgia Super Lawyer, serving Nonprofit Organizations, by Super Lawyer since the rating was established.

Wendell also litigated securities and other commercial matters on behalf of clients. He is a member of the bar in three states, the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court, and the bars of the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Circuits. Wendell served as law clerk to judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth (now Eleventh) Circuit and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Wendell is a visiting scholar at Emory University School of Law.

Served as lead counsel in a federal district court and appellate court case involving securities law claims, successfully representing a group of Wall Street private equity funds.

Served as lead counsel in a federal district court case involving securities law claims based on unsuitable investments, successfully representing a large private foundation against a Wall Street brokerage firm.

Served as lead counsel in a federal district court case and resulting arbitration involving securities law claims based on unsuitable investments and other Rule 10b-5 issues, successfully representing a large private foundation against a Wall Street brokerage firm and an investment fund.

Press and Speech under Assault: The Early Supreme Court Justices, the Sedition Act of 1798, and the Campaign against Dissent (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016)

Criminal Dissent: Prosecutions under the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2020)

The Revolution in Freedoms of Press and Speech: From Blackstone to the First Amendment and Fox’s Libel Act (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020)

Religious Speech and the Quest for Freedoms (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2023)

See CV for additional articles and publications.

Member of American Law Institute (now a Life Member)

Listed in America’s Premier Lawyers and in The Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers