Cooley Establishes Harvard Law School’s First Cyberlaw Clinic Fellowship
Palo Alto, Calif. - Cooley Godward Kronish LLP announced that it has established the first Cyberlaw Clinic Fellowship at Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. The Firm has committed to support the Fellowship position for the next five years.
The Cooley Fellow will become an integral part of the Cyberlaw Clinic’s cutting-edge teaching and representation of clients -- individuals, small start-ups, non-profit groups and government entities -- on matters involving online speech and anonymity; open access, digital copyright and fair use; software and music licensing; patent reexaminations; and protection of children using the internet.
In addition to Cooley’s support for the Clinical Fellow, Cooley and the Cyberlaw Clinic will initiate a collaboration that will include Cooley attorney support of and guidance on some of the Clinic’s ongoing cases and projects and on-campus presentations from Cooley attorneys. The first Cooley Fellow will be announced this spring.
“We are deeply grateful to Cooley for this important gift,” said Acting Dean Howell Jackson ‘82. “Their financial support and commitment to an ongoing pro bono collaboration with us represent a major step forward for our Cyberlaw Clinic. Cooley’s generosity and wealth of expertise will enable the Clinic to enhance its innovative teaching, providing some of the best law school students in the country with engaging and challenging experiences that marry theory with practice to solve pressing legal and policy issues in this fast-moving area of the law.”
"For decades, Cooley has worked with the world’s leading high tech companies, including the pioneers of the internet and e-commerce," said Eric Reifschneider, head of Cooley's technology transactions practice and a 1992 magna cum laude Harvard Law School graduate. "We are gratified to have the opportunity to work closely now with the best and brightest professors and students in the rapidly evolving field of cyberlaw."
Cooley has close ties to Harvard Law School (HLS) with alumni holding key positions throughout the Firm. Currently, HLS alumni lead three of the Firm’s offices; serve on the Firm’s Management Committee; and lead the Technology Transactions and the Mergers & Acquisitions practice groups.
Recent work by the Cyberlaw Clinic has included the submission of amicus curiae briefs in two cases supporting free and open online speech: one urging a broad reading of the Massachusetts anti-SLAPP law to apply to defendants who are members of the news media or who receive compensation for blogging; the other challenging two broad injunctions issued by a federal judge in San Francisco effectively shutting down the web site wikileaks.org over its posting of bank records released by a purported employee whistleblower. The Clinic also prepared and submitted comments to the US Copyright Office requesting an exemption for abandoned digital rights management systems from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act anti-circumvention provisions.
About Cooley Godward Kronish LLP
Cooley Godward Kronish’s 675 attorneys have an entrepreneurial spirit and deep, substantive experience, and are committed to solving clients’ most challenging legal matters. From small companies with big ideas to international enterprises with diverse legal needs, Cooley has the breadth of legal resources to enable companies of all sizes to seize opportunities in today’s global marketplace. The Firm represents clients across a broad array of dynamic industry sectors, including technology, life sciences, clean technology, real estate, financial services, retail and energy.
The Firm has full-service offices in major business and technology centers nationwide: Palo Alto, CA, New York, NY, San Diego, CA, San Francisco, CA, Reston, VA, Broomfield, CO, Washington, DC, Boston, MA and Seattle, WA.
For additional information on Cooley, please visit www.cooley.com.
About the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic
The Cyberlaw Clinic at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society engages Harvard Law students in a wide range of real-world litigation, licensing, client counseling, advocacy, and legislative projects and cases, covering a broad spectrum of Internet, new technology, and intellectual property legal issues. The Berkman Clinic was the first of its kind and today continues its tradition of innovation in this area. The scope of the Clinic’s work includes counseling and legal guidance for complex open access, digital copyright and fair use issues; litigation, amicus filings and other advocacy to protect online speech and anonymity; legal resources and advice for citizen journalists; software and music licensing and contract advice, especially regarding Creative Commons and other “open” licenses; patent reexamination requests for overly broad technology patents; and guidance and amicus advocacy for effective but balanced protection of children in the areas of social networking, child pornography and online exploitation; among many other areas. More information can be found at http://cyber.harvard.edu.
Contact:
Michael Larkin
Cooley Godward Kronish
212-479-6333
mlarkin@cooley.com
Seth Young
Berkman Center for Internet & Society
Harvard University
617-384-9135
syoung@cyber.harvard.edu
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