Cory Reiss

Cory Reiss
Wilmington, North Carolina
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Cory grew up in the Washington, D.C., area and spent his summers at Wilmington-area beaches. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 1994 with a double-major in English and Rhetoric and Communication Studies, focused on writing and mass communication. He embarked on a nearly 15-year journalism career immediately after graduation, when he joined the small staff of a 30,000-circulation weekly newspaper in Virginia, the Charlottesville & Albemarle Observer, as a news and sports reporter. He was quickly promoted and as Managing Editor turned the Observer into a hard news competitor while reversing the paper’s declining revenue stream. Cory left the Observer in 1997 after winning several press association awards to join the Wilmington Star-News as a reporter covering state and federal courts in southeastern North Carolina. He was often tasked with investigative projects and later created a beat focused on public housing and other under-served urban communities. Cory left the Star-News in 2000 to return to the nation’s capitol as the Washington Correspondent for the New York Times Regional Media Group, a chain of 14 daily newspapers that includes the Star-News. He covered Capitol Hill, federal agencies and the Supreme Court for the next seven years, also contributing to the New York Times News Service and the International Herald-Tribune.

Drawn to the law since his days covering courts in North Carolina, Cory decided to leave journalism and enter the Wake Forest University School of Law in 2007. He was the Senior Notes and Comments Editor of the Wake Forest Law Review, which published his article in 2009 suggesting how Congress could protect journalists from being forced to identify confidential sources in federal criminal and civil cases while addressing national security concerns about leaks of classified information. Cory also earned a place on the Moot Court board, led his trial team as co-captain, and was a teaching assistant for legal writing. Cory graduated in 2010 and was inducted into the Order of Barristers, a national honor society for trial and appellate advocacy. Cory is married and has two young sons.