SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. In the mid 1990’s the term was coined by Professors George W. Pring and Penelope Canan who studied this unique form of judicial harassment. Since that time, 33 states, the District of Columbia, and the territory of Guam have adopted Anti-SLAPP laws with varying levels of protection. The trend since 2010 has been to adopt Anti-SLAPP laws broad in scope, with a stay of discovery, providing for an interlocutory appeal, and an award of fees for the SLAPP victim that prevails. The goal being to weed out these retaliatory lawsuits and make the SLAPP victim whole as expeditiously as possible. Over the last several years, there has been significant activity with many state legislatures passing Anti-SLAPP laws or expanding existing laws, including Colorado, Tennessee, Florida, and Georgia to name a few. Just before the ULC passed its Model Act (the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act (“UPEPA”)), the New York legislature amended its law to broaden it in 2020. Since that time, Washington state, Hawaii, and Kentucky have each adopted UPEPA. A bill to adopt UPEPA is also currently pending in the New Jersey legislature.