BU Law: Keeping pace with the evolving technological landscape

“We are always here to help.”

That’s the motto of the two law clinics that make up the Entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property & Cyberlaw Program, a unique collaboration between the Boston University School of Law and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Directed by BU Law faculty and staffed by BU Law students, the clinics—which have meeting space on each campus—provide full-service legal assistance to both BU and MIT students on business, intellectual property, and legal compliance issues.

“This program creatively brings together aspiring lawyers and entrepreneurs to navigate the complex business and legal processes required to move from an innovative concept to market-ready reality,” says BU President Robert A. Brown. “It is wonderful to see such a collaboration across disciplinary boundaries and across the Charles River.”

Real-world experience

BU Law students in the Technology Law Clinic advise students from both institutions on laws and regulations that may affect their innovation-related academic and extracurricular activities, aiming to ameliorate risks related to issues such as cybercrime, privacy, data security, and intellectual property. Projects have ranged from advice on how to use the Freedom of Information Act when trying to access documents to how to comply with Federal Aviation Administration regulations when flying a drone.

“There’s something about being responsible for the lives and fortunes of real clients—it clicks on a switch,” says BU Law Clinical Instructor Andrew Sellars, who directs the Technology Law Clinic. “The clinics provide a rare opportunity for students early in their legal career to be the one in charge, the one setting the agenda, and the one who’s constantly working with the client. That experience will make them better lawyers no matter what kind of law they go into in the future.”

In the Startup Law Clinic, BU Law students work with BU and MIT students who are seeking to develop real-world intellectual property–intensive businesses, in both the for-profit and nonprofit worlds. They advise them on drafting contracts, organizational documents, and partner and shareholder agreements, and counsel them on early-stage business issues related to employment, taxes, finances, patents, trademarks, and more.

“One of the ways we as a law school are really succeeding is in marrying the rigorous analytical training that we’re doing in our classroom courses with clinics like these, which allow students to step up and apply that knowledge in advising clients,” says BU Professor Stacey Dogan, who—as a member of the program’s Oversight Board—was instrumental in its formation and continuing development. Many areas of the law regarding new technologies are undefined, she says. “Our students can bring together theoretical arguments, policy arguments, and other tools they master in the classroom to advocate not just for clients, but for changes in the law.”

An interdisciplinary approach

BU Law has long been a leader in the intellectual property space. A field traditionally concerned with machines, music, books, and film, intellectual property law has broadened considerably to comprise biotechnology, software, the internet, gaming, algorithms, and other high-tech innovations. That means, says Dogan, it is essential for today’s lawyers to create relationships with experts in a variety of areas, including computer science, engineering, and data privacy and security.

“We are developing this scholarly and real-world ecosystem in which lawyers and technology researchers are getting together and talking about cutting-edge policy issues where their disciplines intersect,” she says, citing data-security breaches as an example. “It’s critical that we equip our students to be leading voices in this interdisciplinary conversation when they go out into the world.”

Questions about how to regulate new technologies, from robotics to social-media apps, will only continue to pile up. “It’s important to have someone who can represent the interests of the innovator in those regulatory discussions,” says Sellars. “In our clinics, we’re convening the technologists and the lawyers in the same room, enabling them begin finding the way forward together.”

Your giving matters

The BU Law–MIT partnership breaks new ground. “We are on the front lines of this whole new way of envisioning law schools and their relationship to their university communities,” says Dogan. “Together, we have become a hub for discussion of the important legal issues that student innovators and student entrepreneurs confront.”

But finding funding for such a cutting-edge enterprise is not easy. BU Law wants to expand the clinics’ size to serve a wider range of students, and to hire additional attorney advisors to enable more BU Law students to experience the invaluable on-the-ground training the clinics provide. In addition, says Dogan, the Entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property & Cyberlaw Program hopes to grow to sponsor related educational efforts, including conferences and workshops to keep pace with the ever-evolving legal-technological landscape. With a gift from you to the BU Law Annual Fund, those goal lines draw nearer.

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