Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford Law School delivered this year's Robert W. Kastenmeier Lecture on Friday, October 24,  at the University of Wisconsin Law School.   Professor Lessig spoke on "The Forgotten Balance of Robert Kastenmeier."  This lecture was cosponsored by the Law School and the School of Journalism, School of Library Sciences and Information Studies, and the Instructional Media Development Center of the School of Education.

Lawrence Lessig , professor of law at Stanford Law School , is founder and executive director of the school's Center for Internet and Society.  He is one of the country's leading commentators on legal aspects of new communications technologies and cyberspace.  Professor Lessig teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, law and high technology, Internet regulation, comparative constitutional law, and the law of cyberspace.

Prior to joining the Stanford law faculty, he was a professor of law at the University of Chicago from 1991 to 1997.  From 1997 to 2000, he was at the Harvard Law School, where he was the Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman Professor for Entrepreneurial Legal Studies.  In 1999-2000, Professor Lessig was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.  His "Law of Cyberspace" class, taught while he was a visiting professor at Yale in 1995, was one of the first of its kind offered at a law school.

Professor Lessig earned his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1989, and his M.A. in philosophy, honors first class, from Trinity College in 1986.  He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1983, after earning his B.A. in economics and his B.S. in management (Wharton).

Professor Lessig is chairman of the board of Creative Commons and a member of the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  He was named one of Scientific American's "Top 50 Innovators" in 2002, one of National Law Journal's "Top 100 Most Influential Lawyers" in 2000 and one of Business Week's "eBiz 25" in both 2000 and 2001.

He is the author of many influential publications about cyberlaw and cyberspace, including two books: The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World (2001) and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999).


The Robert W. Kastenmeier Lecture

This lecture is supported by the fund established to honor Robert W. Kastenmeier, an outstanding graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School, who served with great distinction in the United States Congress from 1958-1990.  During his tenure, Congressman Kastenmeier made special contributions to the improvement of the judiciary and to the field of intellectual property law.  He drafted the rules for the House Committee on the Judiciary that were used for the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon and drafted the articles of impeachment against Judge Harry Claiborne.  In 1985, Kastenmeier received the Warren E. Burger Award, presented by the Institute for Court Management, and the Service Award of the National Center for State Courts.  In 1988, he was honored by the American Judicature Society with its Justice Award for his contributions to improving the administration of justice.

The Kastenmeier Fund was created to recognize these contributions by fostering important legal scholarship in the fields of intellectual property, corrections, administration of justice, and civil liberties.  It is a fitting tribute to the leadership of Robert W. Kastenmeier in these areas.

For more information on the event, contact Lynn Thompson, at 608 262-4915 or e-mail to LFThomp1@wisc.edu .

Submitted by on September 16, 2003

This article appears in the categories: Articles