Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law

Accepting Applications For LLM / MS Degree Programs

2011-06-05T12:03:00.000-07:00

Whether you want to gain experience with technological tools that law practice and business relay on, develop substantive expertise in the technology and privacy issues facing lawyers and clients today, or create a client development plan that maximizes the use of technology for specific practice settings, we can design a course track that will meet your needs and career trajectory.

For more information visit our main website. To apply online click here.

CLASSES BEGIN AUGUST 22, 2011

Accepting Applications For LLM / MS Degree Programs

2009-12-15T11:54:00.000-08:00

CLASSES TO START JANUARY 19, 2009

No matter what type of law you are interested in or what direction your career may take, you and your clients will be confronted with issues involving technology and privacy every day. John Marshall’s Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law offers a variety of courses that can help you develop the knowledge and the sought-after skills to compete in the job market.

Spring 2010 IT & Privacy classes include:

IT 803 – Computers and the Law (2 credits).

IT 855 – International Privacy Protections: Transborder Data Flow (2 credits).

IT 812 – Ethical Use of Technology in Practice A.K.A The Professional Responsibilities of a Technological Law Practice (2 credits).

LAW 161/IT 881 – IT Drafting: Information Technology Law/Representing the Technology Client (2 credits).

IT 815 – High Technology Litigation (2 credits).

IT 880(F) – Current Topics in IT Law: Corporate Privacy (2 credits).

IT 881(F) – Current Topics in IT Law: Medical identity Theft (1 credit).

If you would like more information about admission to the LLM / MS programs or registering for these courses, please contact us at itcenter@jmls.edu or (312) 987-1419 as soon as possible.

Project Honey Pot's 1 Billionth Spam

2009-12-15T09:30:00.000-08:00

Adjunct Professor Matthew Prince, developer of Project Honey Pot and CEO of Unspam Technologies, logged Project Honey Pot's billionth email spam message on Wednesday, December 9, 2009 at 06:20 (GMT)

The billionth message was a United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) phishing scam. The spamtrap address to which the message was sent was originally harvested on November 4, 2007 by a particularly nasty harvester responsible for 53,022,293 other spam messages that have been received by Project Honey Pot.

http://www.projecthoneypot.org/1_billionth_spam_message_stats.php

Adjunct Faculty Matthew Prince Profiled in The Trinity Reporter

2009-11-04T08:04:00.000-08:00

Matthew Prince, a member of our adjunct faculty at the Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law! Aptly described as "When a Renaissance man meets the Internet," Matthew is profiled in the Fall issue of The Trinity Reporter, the alumni magazine for Trinity College.

To view the full profile, visit http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/pubrel/reporter/20101/prince.htm

Advisory Board member and alumnus John Bace quoted in recent e-discovery article

2009-10-21T10:43:00.001-07:00

EDD Providers Adapt to a Down Economy

By Jason Krause
Special to Law.com
October 12, 2009

There's an unusual dichotomy in the e-discovery industry right now. Industry observers see scores of e-discovery companies that have folded or disappeared as part of an industry shakeout, but at the same time there is agreement that there is still a growing opportunity to be had despite a slow economy.
...
In addition to controlling technology decisions to their benefit, lawyers are learning the art of project management. "There are two things they don't teach in law school; project management and collaboration," says John Bace, research vice president of Gartner. "I talk to clients who stick with vendors who are technically inept so long as they're great project managers. The only way to control costs is to manage all phases of discovery."

Professor Mark Wojcik Nominated as Chair-Elect of the AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research

2009-10-21T10:38:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Professor Wojcik, who was recently nominated by the Association of American Law Schools' Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research for the 2010 Section office of Chair-elect.

"Mark E. Wojcik (The John Marshall Law School--Chicago) is the nominee for Chair-elect. He is currently serving as Section Secretary. Mark has been in legal academia since 1992 and has wide experience across AALS Sections, legal writing organizations, and ABA sections. His collaboration with people from many sectors of legal education well-positions him to assist incoming Chair Martha Pagliari in managing the business of the Section..."

The full article is available here: http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legalwriting/2009/10/aals-section-nominees.html

Adjunct Faculty Patrick Zeller Featured in the Chicago Law Bulletin

2009-10-07T15:03:00.000-07:00

Congrats to Patrick Zeller, a member of our adjunct faculty here at the Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law! Patrick is featured in the Oct. 2 issue of the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.

To view the full story, “How a lawyer became ‘the computer guy’,” visit http://www.jmls.edu/news/9010%20LB%20reprint%20Zeller.pdf

CITPL Alumna in the News!

2009-08-07T13:14:00.000-07:00

One of our MS Alumna, Gwynne Monahan, is featured in the "Sidebar: Connecting for Job Help" segment of the ABA Journal August 2009 article, "Where the Work Is: Lawyers recommend these practice areas in recessionary times."

Gwynne Monahan is not a lawyer, but she knows what it’s like to lose a job. So the Twitter thread she spotted in May about lawyer layoffs caught her attention. “Wondering why laid-off attorneys don’t band together and start a new law firm,” a lawyer tweeted....

To view the full article, visit http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/where_the_work_is/

Congrats, Gwynne!

Computers and the Law (IT 803) field trips!

2009-07-08T11:35:00.000-07:00

Computers and the Law (IT-803) aims to familiarize students with technology in order to help them appreciate how it has shaped the law and how the law has shaped it.

This year students in the class disassembled hard drives and examined microprocessors in order to familiarize themselves with the inner workings of computers before discussing topics like whether copyright should be treated differently in a digital world.

To see the application of computers and the law outside of the classroom, students ventured on a number of off-site field trips. For instance, XO Communication lead a private tour of one of their downtown data centers, which handles network traffic for the Chicago Board of Trade, and officials talked about how they manage security and prevent fraud.

The founders of Threadless, one of the hottest startups in the Chicago area, invited students to visit their headquarters and discuss how computers help them facilitate vibrant creative communities with participants around the world but how they also create business risks in terms of managing intellectual property.

JCIL Notes

2009-07-08T11:02:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to our recent JCIL award winners!

This year, the Journal editorial board voted to award the prestigious Trubow Writing Award (named after Professor Emeritus George B. Trubow, founder of the Journal) to Sarah Knight for her case note addressing United States v. Andrus, and to Katherine Rengel for her article, “The Americans with Disabilities Act and Internet Accessibility for the Blind.”

Also honored were Sarah Knight and Robin Ficke who received the McGovern Award, recognizing special service to the Journal.

---

The John Marshall Journal of Computer and Information Law remains one of the top ranked specialized law journals in the world. Read in more than 35 countries, this flagship publication of the Center for Information Technology and Privacy law, published four issues this year containing articles on subjects ranging from online music licensing and collective rights organizations, open-source programming, to Internet accessibility for the blind, accessing Holocaust records, identity theft, and privacy of nutrition labels. In addition, the Journal’s symposium issue, “Information Convergence: At the Boundaries of Access,” included 10 articles addressing how information law and policies affect all other areas of law, practice and life.

The Journal was cited by the Supreme Court of the United States in its landmark decision, Quanta Computer, Inc. v. LG Electronics, Inc.

The article, The Future of Licensing Music Online: The Role of Collective Rights Organizations and the Effects of Territoriality, published earlier this year, was chosen as one of the best bar journal and law review articles published within the last year in the fields of entertainment, publishing and the arts. As such, it has been selected for inclusion in the 2009 edition of the ENTERTAINMENT, PUBLISHING AND THE ARTS HANDBOOK, published annually by Thomson Reuters (West).

Congratulations Spring 2009 Graduates

2009-05-18T11:25:00.000-07:00

The John Marshall Law School Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law congratulates all John Marshall May 2009 graduates!

And we'd also like to recognize IT and Privacy Master of Laws and Master of Science graduates:

Master of Science (MS)
Chandra Cannon
Gwendolyn Green

Master of Laws (LLM)
Rafael Hernandez-Toro
Manoj Khandekar, With Honors
Gina Spada, With Honors

Graduation ceremonies were held on Sunday, May 17th, at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Grand Ballroom. The Commencement Address was given by the Honorable Anne M. Burke, Justice of the Supreme Court of Illinois.

Congratulations all and best of luck in your future careers!

Summer semester starts soon!

2009-05-04T14:18:00.000-07:00

A reminder to students to register for summer classes!
You can view our tentative summer schedule here

First day of early session is Tuesday, May 26th. First day of regular summer session is Monday, June 8th.

Contact us at itcenter@jmls.edu or 312.987.1419 with any questions!

CITPL in Second Life

2009-02-02T14:30:00.001-08:00

Last week, CITPL participated in the first ever Education Support Faire in Second Life!

Meetings were attended virtually and covered such topics as teaching and presenting in Second Life (SL), education roundtables, using automated avatars in SL, and providing pedagogical and instructional support in SL, among others.

Check out the wiki to see more: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Education_Support_Faire

Here are some other screen shots!

Let us know if you're in SL, or have any questions or comments about the experience.

Congratulations Januray 2009 Graduates!

2009-01-23T17:36:00.000-08:00

The John Marshall Law School Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law congratulates all John Marshall January 2009 graduates!

And we'd also like to recognize IT and Privacy Master of Laws and Master of Science graduates:

Master of Laws:

Aannaaand K. Deshpande
Matthew Knorr
Maria Pope Toliopoulos With Honors
Steven T. Tseng With Honors

Master of Science:

Kenneth John Gilson With Honors
Carol S. Goldstein
Anna Theresa Johnson
Kathy Johnson With Honors
Brian McDonald
Gwynne Monahan With Honors
Daphnee Maureen Pierre
Paul Szymikowski With Honors
Heather Bond Williams

Graduation ceremonies were held on Sunday, January 18th, at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Grand Ballroom. The Commencement Address was given by Veterans' Affairs Director L. Tammy Duckwork. She spoke candidly about her military service, and the compassion and selflessness of one woman, a mother and wife accompanying her injured husband back to the US. The woman, tending to her wounded husband, also whispered words of encouragement to Ms. Duckworth for the duration of the trip. She also encouraged us to share our talents with others, and to serve our country in whatever capacity makes the best use of our gifts.

Congratulations!

Congratulations to the Michigan State Team

2008-11-11T17:32:00.000-08:00

The John Marshall Law School and the Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law extends its congratulations to the Michigan State College of Law IT Moot Court team!

The Michigan State team placed first at the IT Moot Court Competition.

For complete coverage of the competition, including team pictures, check out the IT Moot Court Blog (yes, there's a blog for that too).

We'd like to congratulate all of the participants this year, and we'd like thank everyone involved in making the competition a success. We look forward to doing it again next year!

Feedback on CITPL Website Redesign

2008-10-15T10:45:00.001-07:00

The John Marshall Law School Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law is working on a redesign of its website.

The current site is here.

The redesign is here.

We'd like your feedback on the redesign. The redesign is an evolving project, and we'd like your help to make it useful to you and the world at large.

A wiki has been created here (requires creation of free account with PBWiki), or you can post a comment to this blog.

2008 IT Moot Court Competition

2008-10-10T11:38:00.000-07:00

October brings to mind taffy apples, colorful trees, college football and the World Series. It is also the month in which The John Marshall Law School International Moot Court Competition in Information Technology and Privacy Law is held.

This year marks the 27th year of the annual competition. It will be held October 23-25.

Be sure to check the IT Moot Court website for more info.

Live Blogging: Digital Dirt

2008-10-02T09:39:00.000-07:00

NOTE: Live blogging, so please ignore lapses in grammar, syntax, etc. I'll fix'em later. Thanks!

12:46pm: Q&A

Q: Endorsements?
MA: Professional endorsements, yes. Personal ones, not really.
TA: Adds to "rep score."

Q: Accepting video resumes?
MA: No. Still get asked for Word resumes from clients.
LA: Specific industries, tech industries, trolling for job applicants through social networking sites.
MA rebuttle: Job niche accounting and finance -- still conservative.
LA: Some alums have landed in companies that are using stuff "as a matter of course" and requiring employees set up social networking pages. Use for internal communications.

Q: What information are they considering to be "personal info"?
MA: Facebook/MySpace more personal websites, going to have personal stuff. Not a problem to talk about fav. books, TV shows, movies; when you get more into illegal activity or questionable activity, hot-button issues. Never know what kind of biases people have.

F-upQ: Answers to questions illegal to ask such as marital status, appear on social networking sites.
A: Have to work under assumption such info found on social sites can be used against you.

Q: Arabic name, other people have it too, how to I show it's me?
TA: Application that aggregates all your websites together. As far as Google goes, really hard to pull all those pages together.

Q: When does this info become crap? Like credit reports.
TA: RipOff Report lets you post bad info, and won't take it down. So much bad info, hard to sort through and remove stuff. Social networking is volunteered.
RA: Fact of the matter is, there's an awful lot of junk out there. Whether or not it's accurate, that's out of your hands. So take control of those things, as limited as they are, to take control of you reputation and put the image that you want out there.

Q: Delete Facebook/MySpace account. If I delete and they keep it, an employer still see?
RA: Info might be archived elsewhere -- WayBackMachine. Starting thinking about what you put out there is going to be available to everyone, even if private.
TA: Even if just viewable to a few friends, one can copy and paste image/text and send it to another 20 friends. Stuff spreads like a virus.

Q: Instance where Google can detect what sites you been to, and is that info available?
TA: Sign up for Google (iGoogle, Gmail, etc), they will track your searches/info unless you opt-out.
RA: Even if not readily tied to an identity, info is still available. Search engine data "accidently" made public, possible to gleam individual people.

12:33pm: Tom

- Google caches every page so it's there.
- Naymz -- social network more like LinkedIn, "Social Reputation Network for Professionals."
- Online Reputation Repair

Work with clients to enhance search engine results for their names.
Push down or dilute any unwanted or negative results
100+ clients. Work with law firms and PR firms.

- "Scraping" -- other sites "scrape" info from social sites (Facebook, LinkedIn) and add to theirs.

- 5 Steps to a Clean Online Rep

Investigate: perform "vanity search" -- search your name, different variations, attributes ("Tom Drugan" Chicago); search MySpace, YouTube, Blogs, etc.
Clean: "Clean your Space and Wash your Face;" set privacy permissions, take down anything you don't want professors, employers, or families to see.
Ask: contact website owner; ask nicely; take legal action of necessary; flood the search engines.
Promote: become your own PR agent. Build your "personal brand." Positive, accurate information; mix up content on sites (blog, online photo album, upload videos, online biographies and endorsements); link websites together, buy a domain name, add comments to other's blogs and profiles.
Monitor: Google Alerts, set-up RSS Reader; Monitor your name on Blogs; Complete Tracking Solution (trackur.com, reputationdefender.com).

12:32: Reis: "Social Forgiveness" -- people would forget. Learn from mistakes. Used to be no permanent record. Not so with Internet unless take extraodrinary steps to fix that.

12:23: Margaret, Mergis Group -- "Reality Check"

- CareerBuilder poll -- 50% of HR managers checking applicants MySpace/Facebook/etc. sites.
- 2 candidates recently pulled out of running for jobs because of social networking pages.
- Top 10 Recruiter Tips for Social Networking Sites

Make your profile private/unsearchable.
Do not include employer information on your profile.
Do not post incriminating/inappropriate info.
Be aware of comments that people are posting on your page.
Be aware of photos/videos in which you are "tagged."
Do not post negative job-related comments.
Make blogs private.
Do not make coworkers/managers your "friend" on these sites.
Avoid posting remakrs regarding hot-button issues.
Be careful with joining clubs/groups that may negatively reflect upon you.

12:09: Leslie Reis Speaking

Reality Check - Maragert
Tom - How to use Internet for good

Leslie's Points

Info about you on Web "will be used by others to make judgments about you."
Info put up by you, friends, family, anyone
No Expectation of Privacy for information publicly available, no legal claim to protect.
Very few exceptions, employers/people have free reign to search and use info found about you on the Web.

- "Publicly Available" -- information people can find without doing a ton of extra work, ie subpoena or fraudulent behavior.

- No overriding comprehensive privacy law.

- Background Checks

Past employment
References
Education
Professional Licenses
Credit History
Criminal History
Court Records

Court Recrods, Public Records, Driver Records, medical history, worker's comp, etc. -- all publicly available!

- Publicly Available info

Internet Searches
Social Networking Sites
Problematic Info -- illegal activities, unprofessional activities, personal info used to make decisions/judgments -- permissible judgments, discriminatory (illegal) judgments such as race, disabilities

Info can lead back to employer, harm employer image.

- Tagged info, links to friends -- can be problematic

- Field trip to Mid-East story: two students pulled out of line because passport suggested born outside US; asked 2 questions: cell phone number, MySpace or Facebook page -- not interested in content, interested in FRIENDS (new meaning to "social network").

- Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)

Doesn't require employers to conduct background checks
Sets national standard for employment screening.
Applies to "Consumer Reports" and "Investigative Consumer Reports"
Only applies to 3rd parties that conduct background checks for an employer
Does not apply to in-house
Does not apply to jobs with annual salares about $75,000.
Require applicant's written consent.
Not to applicant of adverse action.

- Other Applicable Laws

Title VII of Civil Rights Act of 1964
Equal Pay Act of 1963
Age Discrimmination in Employment Act
ADA
Family Educaitonal Rights and Privacy Act

12:08: Introductions. Leslie Reis, Tom Drugan and Margaret Lyons.

12:04pm: Pretty crowded! Having to bring in more chairs. Standing room, perhaps?

11:59am: All presenters are present.

11:57am: Even more people, including seasoned professionals. Nice mix of students and active lawyers.

11:47am: Arrival of people; food. Pizza! Free pizza. Yum! As people trickle in, a slide show of photos of students in "questionable" situations/places. Pictures are posted on MySpace, Facebook and other social networking sites, available for all to see -- including employers.

Digital Dirt: How Your Online Activities Can Impact Your Career Prospects

2008-09-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

Date: Thursday, October 2, 2008
Time: 12noon to 1:30pm (lunch will be provided)
Place: Room 1102 at The John Marshall Law School
What: A panel of experts will discuss the impact that on-line profiles can have on your job search. Learn how employers use the Internet in their hiring processes, what mistakes to avoid, and the positive ways that you can use the web to help you get a job. Speakers include:

Tom Drugan, Founder and Managing Director of Naymz, a company that offers services to help professionals put their best foot forward on the web

Erica Peterson Connor, Esq., Senior Attorney Recruiter at Update Legal – Chicago.

Leslie Ann Reis, Assistant Professor of Law and Director of The John Marshall Law School’s Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law.

RSVP: Katie Hammel at 6hammel@jmls.edu
Sponsors: The John Marshall Law School Center for Information Technology & Privacy Law and the Career Services Office.