Andy Sellars

Andrew Sellars

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BU/MIT STUDENT INNOVATIONS LAW CLINIC

Clinical Associate Professor of Law

BS, Northeastern University
JD, The George Washington University School of Law


Biography

Andrew Sellars is a Clinical Associate Professor of Law and the founding director of the Technology Law Clinic, a legal service for undergraduate and graduate students at MIT and BU. In the clinic, BU Law students counsel clients on laws and regulations that affect their research, advocacy, and innovation, including intellectual property, media law, data privacy, and cybersecurity law. Sellars has overseen the legal representation of hundreds of student clients through his work in the clinic, representing computer security researchers, public interest advocates on technology and society issues, creators of innovative new technologies, and student journalists. His scholarship focuses on application of intellectual property and computer access laws to technology research and journalism, including permissionless investigation of technology systems.

Sellars is a Civic Tech Fellow at BU’s Faculty of Computing and Data Sciences, a faculty affiliate at BU’s Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering, and a member of the Boston Bar Association. Before joining BU, Sellars was the Corydon B. Dunham First Amendment Fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. There, he worked in Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic and the Digital Media Law Project. Sellars received his JD with high honors from the George Washington University Law School, where he was awarded the Jan Jancin Award from the American Intellectual Property Law Association, given to the top intellectual property law student in the country.

Publications

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  • Azer Bestavros, Stacey Dogan, Paul Ohm & Andrew Sellars, Bridging the Computer Science – Law Divide November 2022 CSLAW '22: Proceedings of the 2022 Symposium on Computer Science and Law (2022)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Data Generated by New Technologies and the Law: A Guide for Massachusetts Practitioners
    Scholarly Commons
  • Andrew Sellars, Twenty Years of Web Scraping and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 24 Boston University Journal of Science & Technology Law (2018)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Andrew Sellars, Defining Hate Speech (2016)
    Scholarly Commons

Stories from The Record

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Activities & Engagements

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Courses

SILC: Privacy, Security and Technology Seminar 1: LAW JD 866

2 credits

THIS CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have formally applied to and been accepted to the Student Innovations Law Clinic. The BU/MIT Student Innovations Law Clinic (SILC) provides counseling and guidance to assist MIT and BU students with laws and regulations that relate to their innovation-related academic and extracurricular activities. As a companion to SILC Fieldwork course, in Privacy, Security, & Health Seminar 1 students in SILC's Privacy, Security, and Health Practice Group meet to review substantive legal issues in information privacy, cybersecurity, and health law and how they relate to SILC's practice, including issues in consumer privacy; sectoral privacy in health, finance, and education; cybersecurity and breach response; and FDA regulation of information technology and devices. The seminar will also introduce students to the lawyering skills (including interviewing, counseling, negotiation, drafting, etc.) that will help them in counseling MIT and BU students on their creative and innovative projects. This class will occasionally meet with some or all of the students in the other SILC Practice Group sections for clinic-wide discussions and case round presentations. NOTE: This Clinic counts toward the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option.

FALL 2024: LAW JD 866 A1 , Sep 3rd to Dec 5th 2024
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Tue 2:10 pm 4:10 pm 2 Andrew SellarsChris Conley LAW 418

SILC: Privacy, Security and Technology Seminar 2: LAW JD 869

2 credits

THIS CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have formally applied to and been accepted to the Student Innovations Law Clinic. The BU/MIT Student Innovations Law Clinic (SILC) provides counseling and guidance to assist MIT and BU students with laws and regulations that relate to their innovation-related academic and extracurricular activities. As a companion to SILC Fieldwork course, in Privacy, Security, & Health Seminar 2 students in SILC's Privacy, Security, and Health Practice Group expand upon the legal and practice issues reviewed in the fall seminar, including issues in consumer privacy; sectoral privacy in health, finance, and education; cybersecurity and breach response; and FDA regulation of information technology and devices. This class will occasionally meet with some or all of the students in the other SILC Practice Group sections for clinic-wide discussions and case round presentations. NOTE: This Clinic counts toward the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option.

SPRG 2025: LAW JD 869 A1 , Jan 13th to Apr 23rd 2025
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Tue 2:10 pm 4:10 pm 2 Andrew SellarsChris Conley LAW 513

Student Innovations Law Clinic: Fieldwork: LAW JD 725

4 credits

THIS CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have formally applied to and been accepted to the Student Innovations Law Clinic. The BU/MIT Student Innovations Law Clinic provides counseling and guidance to assist MIT and BU students with laws and regulations that relate to their innovation-related academic and extracurricular activities. The clinic provides counseling in a variety of different areas of law, organized into three practice groups: (1) Intellectual Property & Media; (2) Privacy, Security, & Health; and (3) Venture & Finance. Representation of clients can include client counseling, contract and policy drafting and review, negotiation with third parties, and, if capacity allows, litigation and other dispute resolution. CO-REQUISITE: If students have not done so already, students must take at least one course in any one of the following four areas: (1) intellectual property (either an IP survey course or other core IP course such as patent, copyright, trademark, or trade secret); (2) privacy (including information privacy law or information risk management); (3) cybersecurity; or (4) corporations. NOTE: The Technology Law Clinic counts toward the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option.

FALL 2024: LAW JD 725 A1 , Sep 3rd to Dec 5th 2024
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am 4 Andrew SellarsChris Conley
FALL 2024: LAW JD 725 B1 , Sep 3rd to Dec 5th 2024
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am 4 Ari LipsitzVictoria Tang
FALL 2024: LAW JD 725 C1 , Sep 3rd to Dec 5th 2024
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am 4 Vivian EtterTom Patten
SPRG 2025: LAW JD 725 A1 , Jan 13th to Apr 23rd 2025
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am 4 Andrew SellarsChris Conley
SPRG 2025: LAW JD 725 B1 , Jan 13th to Apr 23rd 2025
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am 4 Ari LipsitzVictoria Tang
SPRG 2025: LAW JD 725 C1 , Jan 13th to Apr 23rd 2025
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am 4 Vivian EtterTom Patten