Academic Center | Thomas Jefferson School of Law

Academic Center

Center for Law, Technology & Communications

Professor Sandra Rierson, Director

Professor Sandra Rierson,
Director

The Center for Law, Technology and Communications addresses the legal challenges engendered by the extraordinary pace of technological development of the last half century. Scientific inventions force a re-examination of legal concepts, creating problems that lawyers and judges have just begun to identify. While the Internet and the telecommunications industry challenge traditional notions of speech, cloning forces a re-examination of the meaning of reproduction and family. While the Human Genome Project continues to map the essential components of human identity, developments in artificial intelligence unsettle longstanding notions of human knowledge. While new media offer unparalleled opportunities for artistic expression, they also test the limits of copyright, trademark and publicity protection for authors and artists in democratic civil society. In light of these and related developments, the Center for Law, Technology and Communications seeks to encourage research, dialogue, debate and sustained study of these issues into the 21st century.

The location of the Center at Thomas Jefferson attests to San Diego's growing reputation as a home to high technology and communications research and development. San Diego is now home to more than 3,000 technology companies and boasts the third highest concentration of bioscience companies in the nation. Referred to by many as "Telecom Valley," San Diego has laid more than 184,000 miles of fiber optic cable, more than any other region in the country.

The Center for Law, Technology and Communications prepares students to address the tremendous impact of technological change and the revolution in communications on virtually every area of practice. Traditional business practice, for example, must accommodate the emergence of e-commerce. Similarly, traditional family law practice has been permanently transformed by assisted reproduction. The Center also prepares students for careers in fields related to high technology and the communications media, such as intellectual property law, telecommunications and media law, and sports and entertainment law.

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