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Cyberlawyer

With millions of dollars invested in proprietary content as well as software and code, guarding copyrights and patents for Internet companies has become a necessary and important step to making money in the information age. With the free flow of information on the web and the debate over who owns it, best exemplified by Napster's recent front page battle with the music industry, tech-savvy lawyers have a unique opportunity to help decipher the laws for a new frontier.

Jonathan Zittrain, faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, says there's a booming demand for "cyberlawyers" who understand and enjoy the technology they're dealing with. "It used to be law school graduates had to wait years before becoming a corporate counselor. Now, tech-smart graduates leave school and get hired as corporate counsel by a dot-com (with little money, but plenty of stock options) where they do everything from contracts to acquiring copyrights and writing cease-and-desist letters," says Zittrain.

This opportunity also extends to tech-savvy lawyers willing to stick to the more traditional law firms. For Robert Morishita, a 26-year-old lawyer in Las Vegas, the appeal of Internet law and his decision to help create the rules for a new digital world have paid off with a partnership in his burgeoning firm, Anderson & Morishita. Like his counterparts working for tech companies, he has to be ready to do it all - especially when a small company needs someone to look over its first contract agreement. But Morishita relishes the smaller clients. "It's not the Microsofts or Ciscos that are making history, it's the little guys," he says.

Zittrain agrees. "You have to be a legal acrobat with your hands in everything," he says. Right now, Silicon Valley is the vanguard of this new type of law. Even if you don't land a job as counsel for a tech company, any local law firm interested in increasing its billable hours will have a technology issues department. Zittrain also points out that there's a tremendous need for cyberlawyers in the dot-org world of Washington D.C, "The same conversations that are going on in California are occurring in D. C. as well," he says.

Those interested in cyberlaw should be techno geeks first and lawyers second. You should know the fundamentals of web design and coding, and Morishita recommends boning up on the industry and following daily tech news columns such as Reuters. "These companies are extremely clued in to what everyone else is doing," he says. "They'll expect you to know what other companies are doing as well."

Information Source:

Experience Magazine