Jef Pearlman

Biography

Jef Pearlman is a Clinical Professor and the Executive Director of the BU/MIT Student Innovations Law Clinic (SILC) at Boston University School of Law. Prior to joining the BU faculty, he was a Clinical Professor of Law and the Director of the Intellectual Property & Technology Law Clinic at USC Gould School of Law for seven years. Before that, Pearlman spent four years as the clinical supervising attorney and lecturer in law in the Juelsgaard Intellectual Property and Innovation Clinic at Stanford University. In each of these roles, he supervised and trained second- and third-year law students to represent non-profits, innovators, creators, and students at the cutting edge of intellectual property and technology policy in courts, administrative agencies, and the public sphere.

Before becoming a lawyer, Pearlman received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from MIT and his JD from Stanford Law School, where he represented clients as a student in the Cyberlaw Clinic. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable William W Schwarzer in the Northern District of California and, sitting by designation, on the 1st, 6th and 9th Circuits. After clerking, he was awarded the Bruce J. Ennis Fellowship for First Amendment Law, which enabled him to advocate for sound intellectual property, technology and innovation policy as a fellow and staff attorney at the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, Public Knowledge. Pearlman then returned to the Bay Area, where he litigated patent disputes in federal court and at the International Trade Commission and advised clients on a variety of corporate, transactional, and litigation issues relating to open-source software at Covington & Burling LLP.