Singularity Law

In prior postings I have discussed the fact that law schools are beginning to respond to the needs of law firms and in-house legal departments that need law students trained in the intricacies of technology contract drafting. My law school (Southwestern Law School, Los Angeles) as well as a growing number of law schools [...]

Ralph Waldo Emerson is quoted as saying: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self Reliance,” reprinted in Self-Reliance and Other Essays (Dover Thrift Eds. 1993). Consistency, whether foolish or not, is something that business people rely upon in making long-term decisions. Unfortunately, consistency has not been the order [...]

Over the last several years I have been co-teaching a course on “software law” through UCLA Extension. This year, for the first time, I will be co-teaching a two-day course on outsourcing law — the subject of a book I recently published through Aspen Publishers.
The course will be held on October 12-13, 2006 at [...]

Teaching a course of technology contract drafting, I am often confronted with students who wonder why we spend so much time on the minutiae. The common question is “Does any of this really matter?” While I assure them that it does, there are not a lot of good, practical examples to show them. [...]

A good friend and a pioneer in the IT law field recently died in a tragic accident. Mark L. Gordon, founder and managing partner in the Chicago-based law firm of Gordon & Glickson (recently merged into McGuire Woods), died with his wife on July 31, 2006 in a house fire in suburban Chicago.
Mark was [...]

What happens to existing distribution networks when new methods of distribution become feasible? The general rule has been that existing distributors will pressure producers to eschew these new forms of distribution to protect the existing distributors’ business. We saw that several years ago when IBM and Blockbuster announced a service that would allow users to [...]

My son, also named Michael, is a budding filmmaker (alright, so is half of LA). About three years ago, when he was a junior at UCLA he and a friend made a short fan film for a Star Wars fan site. The video (called Ryan v. Dorkman) featured a laser sword fight including special effects [...]

I had the pleasure of speaking at an international conference in Amsterdam in early June. The event was the 20th anniversary of the International Federation of Computer Law Associations (IFCLA), which consists of virtually every computer law organization in the world (except for the U.S.-based ITech Law Associations — previously called the Computer Law Association).
The [...]

This year, for the first time, I offered a course for law students on drafting and negotiating technology agreements. While a few students had drafted contracts before, most of them were lucky to have read a couple of contracts (such as an apartment lease and an auto purchase agreement). Although they had all taken contract [...]