Osterreicher briefed journalists at the 2023 Crime Coverage Summit in January 2023: Journalists, Know Your Rights at Police Scenes, Protests. 

Mickey H. Osterreicher is of counsel to Finnerty Osterreicher & Abdulla and serves as general counsel to the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA). He is an award-winning visual journalist with over fifty years of experience in print and broadcast and has been a uniformed reserve deputy sheriff with the Erie County Sheriff’s Office (ECSO) since 1976.

His work has appeared in such publications as the New York Times, Time, Newsweek and USA Today as well as on ABC World News Tonight, Nightline, Good Morning America, NBC Nightly News and ESPN. He has been actively involved in matters such as cameras in the courtroom, the federal shield law, media access, public photography, use of drones for newsgathering and copyright infringement. He writes regularly for the Media Law Resource Center and NPPA’s magazine as well as other online publications and has been quoted in the news nationally on these issues.

Osterreicher was a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Public Recording of Police advisory committee and helped draft the manuals and provide training on this issue. He has also presented similar programs and training to journalists and law enforcement agencies throughout the country for over a decade. He is also an advisory board member of DroneResponders supporting Public Safety UAS ad an official observer to the Uniform Law Commission Tort Law Committee Related to Drones. He participated in the National Transportation and Information Administration’s multistakeholder process concerning privacy, transparency, and accountability issues regarding the commercial and private use of unmanned aircraft systems. He has been an adjunct lecturer in Photojournalism at SUNY at Buffalo and an adjunct law professor in media and law at the University at Buffalo Law School.

The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) honored him in 2015 as a “Fellow of the Society,” the highest professional honor given by the Society for extraordinary contribution to the profession. In 2017 he was named Reserve Deputy of the Year by the ECSO and Erie County Deputy Sheriff’s Badge and Shield Club. He was inducted into the Buffalo Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2021.

Mr. Osterreicher graduated cum laude in 1973 from SUNY at Buffalo with a Bachelor of Science degree in Photojournalism/Photography and received his Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the University of Buffalo Law School in 1998. He is admitted to practice in New York State and several federal jurisdictions around the country including the U.S. Supreme Court.