Episode 42-How the Rise of Digital Media, Innovation, and Data Privacy Regulation Have Shifted the Legal Job Market

Law is a conservative profession.  In law school we read the great appellate decisions and learned about the tremendous importance of precedent in our legal system.  In truth, the law is always evolving and adapting to changing societal attitudes and new developments in business, the sciences and technology.  New statutes and regulations are always being adopted to address new legal concerns and even case law evolves. If you want to remain relevant in the profession, it is important to keep reinventing yourself.  The current pandemic and accompanying financial upheaval underscores this.  In the past two months, for example, every business and employment lawyer has needed to become an expert on the CARES act.  In the past 2 years, every corporation that collects any personal data has had to learn how to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act, GDPR in Europe and similar state privacy statutes. The digitization of our economy has had a particularly strong impact on our legal system.  It has never been easier to create, store and copy massive amounts of data.  This has had great implications for privacy, the protection of intellectual property rights and the tension between IP protection and creating strong incentives for innovation.  Lawyers will continue to play a key role in shaping and interpreting the competing legal interests of law enforcement, private citizens, businesses and artists.  So where are the career opportunities in the midst of all of this disruption? In this episode, my guest, Professor Jessica Silbey, answers that question.  Professor Silbey is Director of the Center for Law, Innovation and Creativity at Northeastern University School of Law (also known as CLIC).  She is a leading scholar and nationally recognized expert on intellectual property and the use of film to communicate about law.  Professor Silbey is the author of several books on intellectual property, creativity and invention. She studies the role that intellectual property plays to sustain and frustrate creative and innovative communities. She is a frequent presenter at national and international conferences, and a Guggenheim fellow. CLIC combines the study of innovation and creativity with Northeastern University School of Law's social justice mission. The faculty teach courses on information security, privacy regulation, entertainment and media law, intellectual property, Internet and e-commerce, lawyering and entrepreneurship, and creative communities.