Practical Lawyering in Cyberspace

Semester: 

Fall

Offered: 

2012

Description:

This course will explore the complex challenges of effectively representing clients in a wide variety of intellectual property, technology and internet-related disputes.

Using a rich set of cyberlaw-related case studies drawn from recent legal controversies, including targeted case readings, court filings, real-life testimony, deposition videotapes and other demonstrative materials, we will condense and weave together a broad range of experiences lawyers encounter in the actual practice of law in these dynamic fields with the core doctrinal and theoretical principles of the relevant areas of law, including IP, online speech, anonymity, privacy, cybercrime, antitrust and others.

We will focus particularly closely on critical and strategic thinking and analysis, complex legal-practical problem solving and decision-making; and clear and persuasive writing and drafting. At appropriate points, we will bring in outside specialists to enhance our understanding of the interplay between substantive and practical issues. (Previous guests have included Microsofts head of global IP strategy, Twitters general counsel, Facebooks chief privacy officer, Googles chief competition counsel, a top Justice Department official responsible for cybercrime, a senior Assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecutes major high-tech cases, and noted computer scientists who have testified as experts in antitrust and patent cases).

Students may also wish to consider taking the Cyberlaw clinic in the Fall, Winter, or Spring semesters.

Instructor:

Phillip Robert Malone

See also: Law