Jack Lerner is a Clinical Professor of Law at the UC Irvine School of Law and the Director of the UCI Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic. Since 2008, Professor Lerner has been the Executive Editor of the award-winning treatise Internet Law and Practice in California (CEB).
Professor Lerner’s work focuses on problems at the intersection of law and technology, particularly how technology law and policy affect innovation and freedom of expression. He has written and spoken widely on copyright, privacy and other areas of technology law.
Professor Lerner received a B.A., with distinction, in English from the University of Kansas and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He clerked for Judge Fred I. Parker on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Judge G. Thomas Van Bebber in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas. He practiced IP law with the Palo Alto, Calif., firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, P.C. and in 2004 was a research fellow with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. Before joining USC, Professor Lerner was Clinic Fellow at the Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.
Among Professor Lerner’s recent publications are “Law Enforcement Investigations Involving Journalists,” in National Security Leaks, Whistleblowers, and the Media (Paul Rosenzweig, Timothy J. McNulty & Ellen Shearer, Eds.) (ABA 2014) (with Rom Bar-Nissim) and “The Duty of Confidentiality in the Surveillance Age,” 17 J. Internet L. 1 (2014) (with Frank, Lee, Wade).
Professor Lerner was previously a Clinical Professor at the USC Gould School of Law and Director of the USC Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic, where he led law students as they counsel and represent policymakers, artists, innovators, nonprofit organizations, and others on a range of IP and technology issues.
Among other things, under Professor Lerner’s supervision law students have obtained exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act on behalf of documentary filmmakers and authors nationwide that have helped them exercise their fair use rights. Professor Lerner has also worked with policymakers in the developing world to conduct a major survey of copyright limitations and exceptions among Pacific Rim economies.
In 2016, Professor Lerner received the California Lawyer Attorney of the Year award for his work helping filmmakers and authors.
Contact Lerner at commlead@usc.edu.