Publications
Technology Law & Policy Clinic
In 2003, the Shidler Center received a $100,000 grant from Amazon.com to establish a new technology law and public policy clinic at UW Law School. Professor Anita Ramasastry authored the successful grant which provided funds for a new, year long, clinic and a complementary two credit course on technology law and public policy. The course is open to law students and graduate students from other disciplines; the clinical component is exclusively made up of law students.
After a nationwide search, William Covington, a former government regulator, a telecommunications lawyer and long time regulatory affairs counsel for AT&T Wireless, was hired to direct the clinic and teach the complementary course, commencing in September 2003. Covington developed an innovative course focused on important debates relating to law and policy especially in the technology area. The course provided students a look at the nuts and bolts of the legislative process and also familiarized them with key legislation in areas such as telecommunications, privacy rights, biotechnology and intellectual property.
Covington initially launched the clinic in the 2003-2004 academic year with four law students-that number has doubled this year. The clinic is a unique offering at the UW Law School with its emphasis on the legislative process. Other clinics often have a litigation or dispute resolution focus while the Technology Law and Public Policy students have the choice of writing legislation, critiquing existing law or conducting in-depth research on issues where high tech and public policy converge. Covington’s clinic is open to students from the JD program as well as from the Law School’s Intellectual Property Law and Policy LLM Program.
The goals of the clinic are two fold. First, the clinic is meant to add a distinct, thoughtful and energetic voice to the ongoing process of formulating public policies governing high tech, intellectual property and privacy. The second goal is to provide students with a first hand glimpse of the legislative and policymaking arenas in order to train the next generation of tech savvy policymakers in Washington State and the U.S..
During its first year, Covington partnered his clinic students with leading nonprofits and government organizations working on technology law and policy matters. Students worked with the Washington D.C. based Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the High Tech Unit of the Washington Attorney General’s Office and the Public Counsel’s Office of the state Attorney General. Students helped to craft legislation, develop policy “white” papers and provided comments on proposed laws.
Greg Plichta, a 3L, worked for EPIC. Plichta wrote a white paper assessing the policy implications of the use of Radio Frequency Identifier tags (RFID) in the marketplace. His paper was well received by EPIC and one of EPIC’s senior analysts, a regulator with 20 years of experience, used it in a presentation to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The Plichta paper was submitted as part of the record for a workshop on RFID held by the FTC and is posted on the Commission’s website.
This year Technology Law and Public Policy students are working with the Seattle Broadband Study Commission, assessing the federal government’s policy on renewable energy, reviewing California’s Proposition 71 (embryonic stem cell research), and assessing the privacy rights of those who communicate via email.