This episode is the TLP Alums: Perspectives from the Private Sector panel from the Technology Law and Policy Clinic at 10 event. It was recorded on November 10, 2023
Jake Karr (moderator), Technology Law and Policy Clinic
Ava McAlpin, Lincoln Center for Performing Arts
Samanatha Fink Hedrick, FullStory
Florina Yezril, Gibson Dunn
Ethan Lin, Brown Rudnick
Announcer 0:01
Welcome to engelberg center live a collection of audio from events held by the engelberg center on innovation Law and Policy at NYU Law.
This episode is the TLP alums perspectives from the private sector panel from the technology Law and Policy clinic at 10 event. It was recorded on November 10 2023.
Jake Karr 0:34
All right, I'm sorry to pull folks away from these lingering conversations. But we're gonna get started. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Jake, I'm the Deputy Director of the clinic, also an alum of the clinic. I graduated from NYU in 2018, obviously, clearly never quite graduated from TLP. I'm really glad that we had a full 30 minute break after the last panel, because I was definitely tearing up a little bit watching all of our amazing former students. And I definitely needed some time to compose myself. Now here, I am moderating this next panel, which is the private sector panel, although as we'll see in a second, it's actually not made up exclusively of folks currently working in the private sector, or in big law, I think that's actually a perfect illustration of the clinic's orientation, and its mission, like NYU, itself in the law school clinic has a strong commitment to advancing Public Interest Law. Although most alums, at least initially or for some time, go on to very successful, very impressive careers in the private sector. But one of the things that the clinic strives to do is to show law students, the ways in which those two things commitment to public interest and work in the private sector don't need to be either or especially in the tech law and policy space. And so I'm sitting up here with three panelists in person and one over zoom, who really represent the arc of TLP. Over the years, I'll let folks introduce themselves in a bit more detail. But first, we have Eva who graduated I believe in 2013, Assistant General Counsel at Lincoln Center 2013. So I guess it's not just TLPs 10 year anniversary, today. Floreana associate at Gibson Dunn graduated in 2016. Sam on Zoom is Senior Commercial counsel at fullstory. Graduated in 2019, I believe, and Ethan Lin associate at Brown. Rudnick sitting to my far right, graduated a couple of years ago in 2020. Walk. So after folks introduce themselves, I'll open things up with a few softball questions. Hopefully, we can turn this into a bit of a conversation. But for now, maybe Sam, we could start with you over zoom, if you wouldn't mind sharing a bit about your current role, your path from the clinic to where you are now. And if you remember what your clinic project or projects were back in the day.
Samanatha Fink Hedrick 3:03
Yeah, sounds good. Can everyone hear me? Yeah, it's great. Great, awesome. Hey, everyone, I am so sad that I couldn't be with you in person. But honestly, the biggest change since I left the clinic is that I am a new mom. And my kid is sick. So very, I'm at home. So I actually had a bit of an unusual career path and basically took all of the traditional components for how someone would get to and in house rolling line, kind of threw him in a cup, shook them up like Yahtzee Dice and spit out random order. So I started after college, at a nonprofit, and I was the only employee for three years, somewhere in the middle. Without doing all of the things I realized that I really loved working with our attorneys on partnership agreements. And that was a really weird and very specific very thing to say, but I figured I should look into it. So the LSAT thought I was going to law school, kind of took a firm turn and went to Google, because my roommate at the time was at Google and said, Well, it's a lovely dream that he wants to build me as a nonprofit contracts attorney. But what about this really good, where you can figure out what you want to do and see if this is really up. And you know, hey, there's free flew tips. I was like, Cool. Let's listen to what they have to say. And decided to go with it absolutely loved every single second, I thought I was gonna be there for a year, then go to law school, continue on my dream to become a nonprofit, hundreds attorney, and ended up loving it so much that I stayed for almost seven years. So at that point in time, it sort of next up and non attorney roles, decided to actually go to law school, took a leap of faith went full time and left Google and ended up at NYU. Love it there too. Then went to the firm afterwards. So check transactions, saying kind of within my my check world that I really loved. And then I thought it was always good to go back to Google but I ended up getting a phone call from fullstory where you Now, every day listen to the pitch turned out was a pretty good pitch, love to hear too. So I've been here for three years now. And then for the project, I definitely remember my product is a lot of fun. I am a self admitted copyright nerd through and through. So I worked with a wonderful nonprofit institution to help them with DMCA takedown rules, and ended up helping them with a revamp of their entire online Terms of Service as well. So
Jake Karr 5:32
thanks so much.
Florina Yezril 5:35
So I'm currently a seventh year associate doing IP. I'm a seventh year associate at Gibson done doing exclusively IP in what is generally unusual. I do both high tech patent litigation and also tech transactions licensing, m&a support as an IP specialist, so it's all IP, but it's split. If anyone here is a student and thinking about doing that, I would advise against it do not do that. How did I get there, I was in college as an electrical engineer, and afterwards went to a small firm called Elysium digital, which was then acquired by Strauss, Greenberg and then acquired by AON to do computer science consulting. So our clients were the lawyers in high tech pad litigation. This was at the height of the cellphone wars. And I was like, I'm so smart. Why are these lawyers not listening to me when I'm telling them that I looked at the code and this is what's happening. And this is what they should say. So I went to law school and found out that there's a lot going on in patent litigation. That's not just what the source code actually says. I came to NYU specifically for padding litigation. And I came out wanting to do that. I went to my first law firm. And between the time I was a summer and two months into my time there, all of the high tech patent partners either retired or went into another law firm. So I stuck around and I ended up doing really interesting work in both copyright litigation. I was on sort of not district court litigation at the copyright royalty board. I was doing trade secret things. I was doing trademark things and always wanting to get back to patent litigation. I went to get some done. And I told them up front. I said, Hey, I would love to do pen litigation and transactional work your free market system is that for real? Can I actually do that? And they said, Yeah, yeah, sure. Sure, sure. So after my first year of doing like 120%, patent litigation, I managed to start taking more corporate work, really enjoyed it. And after coming back from maternity leave, got to do more and more of it. And that's where I am now. For my clinic courses after multiple applications. I got in to two semesters, the first one was a very traditional sort of amicus brief on Fifth Amendment issues. Where can the police force you to give them your password to decrypt your phone? This was 2015 in the fall, and then I got an email. I think five years later, that it was parts of that brief were used successfully, which was very exciting. And then in the second semester, I worked with the New York Public Library on various projects relating to ebooks.
Ava McAlpin 8:17
Hi, am I next? Eva, I was class of 2013. And I was part of the original group of students who petitioned for this clinic. So I'm so so thrilled to see that it's still going strong. So happy to be back. 10 years later, I am Assistant General Counsel at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. And how did I get there? I came to law school knowing I wanted to be an IP lawyer. I wanted to be an IP lawyer since I was about 10 years old. One of my parents friends worked on the wind done gone case. And I just thought it was the coolest thing. So I wanted to be an IP lawyer and I came here and I wanted to make the IP community at NYU, really robust and strong. After law school, I went to genuine block and did IP litigation, copyright and trademark specifically. I was there for two years and then took a pause and clerked on the Southern District of New York, where I got to do a trademark case trial, which was fun as well. And then went back to General block for I think it was two years, three years. And then I was doing pro bono work for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts while I was at dinner. And that's how I made my transition in house. And it's just so nice. I mean, I know flooring actually from college. We didn't overlap at the law school, but I feel like the clinic just has such a strong sense of community and family. It was really nice at the happy hour last night. I met some students, former students and current students who worked summer associates at General block and did pro bono work for Lincoln Center. I was out on maternity leave this summer, so didn't get to overlap like that. but just it's really nice to have like minded people with such interesting thoughts and be able to connect. So that's when my project, my project was a fair use project, which is still very much, much doing it's that not much has changed. And it was there was a playwright, who was taking snippets of language from a famous children's author and created a play out of them. And I was the author's writings, both in terms of letters, personal letters, and the fictional works, and it was really fun. Thanks.
Ethan Lin 10:41
I am Ethan, a third year. So let's see how that brown brown bag I'm in the pan legation group. And I'm also in this data privacy and cybersecurity group. And I am happy that I get to do work in an area of law that I'm interested in, and I am able to do this area. work in this area, because of my clinical experience. I don't have a science background. So I never expected that I'm going to end up working as a patent litigator, because very typically they look for people with panel engagement experience. But because of my project at a technology Law and Policy clinic, out of that experience, I ended up publishing a white paper on reforming a patent term extension provision. I was representing, I was in a group representing prep for AWS, which is an advocacy group whose mission is to gain you to fight for universal access to medication. And at the time, one of our strategies is to fight a patent term extension by bringing attention to the pound and Trademark Office, some gamesmanship behavior on the part of a pharmaceutical company. And there is an explicit rule. Today, the patent trademark office has explicit rules, no third party challenges to pen term extensions. And we felt that that, like that's really messed up. And then das inspired my work and drafting this white paper. And at the time, I had this really limiting belief that like, Oh, I couldn't do patent work. Because I don't have a technical background. I didn't even take a patent law course. Because I didn't think that well who want to hire me during this area of law. But it just so happens that my group was, when I started my work, the group was growing, they needed some juniors, and I was one of the few people who have anything to do with pines. And so I was placed in that group. And it turns out, I could do this area of work, it's just that I kept telling myself I couldn't. But yeah, it's because of the clinic that was able to do this area of work in this area of law. And for the data privacy and cybersecurity part of my work, I was able to kind of help make that group happen, in a sense, because I reached out to a transactional partner who does some policy advisory work. And he is kind of a expert in cyber law. And I was like, Hey, this is a very hot area. This is an area of law that I'm interested in, I have a certificate showing that like, I have knowledge in this patchwork of regulations in the US, like if you ever have any work in this year that touches on data privacy, I'm happy to help out so that we ended up forming a small group. And this also in my experience, and data privacy is also based in part of the work that I've done in the clinic. I worked on, I created my own project on examining a portion of HIPAA privacy laws. And, and Jason and Brett and Chris, were very supportive of me just like launching my own project within the clinic, which is super cool. But it's because of that experience, I was able to kind of like, put myself into this position of like forming this group of my firm. So anyway, yeah. So that's, that's my spiel. That's where I am.
Jake Karr 13:54
Thank you. So on that note, actually, in sort of continuing the theme of reflection for today, I'd like to start off by asking all of you to address I think, a related question, which is, can you identify a specific memory experience lesson from your clinical experience that has really influenced your career that really sat with you, or change the way you think about practice or the law? And Sam, maybe we can continue in this same order, and we'll have you go first.
Samanatha Fink Hedrick 14:29
Yeah. So I think my absolute fondest memory of the clinic is just perfectly just arguing with Jason all the time. I think we have very little memory at all, which was awesome because it helped me form my own opinions, because I needed to be able to tell him why I disagreed on something so I absolutely love it. And I think if there's anything that I could, you know can impart to add to your current and future state So just be, don't be afraid to have your own opinions. And don't just assume that, that even your professors are correct. I think, for me, that, you know, I can had a fairly lonely career even before I got to law school. So the amazing team at Google had taught me how to be a lawyer, and what to do as a lawyer. But law school is where I learned why I was doing all the things I was doing as a lawyer. And I think it's just, I don't know, I think a couple taught me how to be a good lawyer. NYU taught me how to be an opinionated lawyer. And I learned that you know, what I wanted to do, when it came to write a contract, or what I thought the right position was on something. So that's definitely just my absolute favorite memory of the clinic. And probably one of the most valuable things I took away from not just the clinic, but all of law school was just finding my voice as a lawyer and being able to say, this is what I believe in why now tell me why I'm wrong. So that I can try to tell you why you're just not that important really helps you form your own opinions. And I think one thing that I love both tech law and IP law is that these are not settled issues of law, there aren't of black and white rules for the most part. So you know, just one of those basics, so that you can then interpret it and form your own opinions about the things happening around you.
Jake Karr 16:27
Thanks, Karina.
Florina Yezril 16:28
So the traditional project I mentioned, the amicus brief was with Brett and thoughts Abdo at the ACLU. And it was so I think it was the first time that I spent basically an entire semester writing one piece of work. My partner and I had multiple revisions, and I was looking at my emails, and what we actually submitted was version eight. And this was no, I'm sorry, I don't know where Michael good years, but no offense lawyering program here. But it was the first time that someone told me how to write persuasive. It was the first time somebody said, nobody has time to actually read very closely everything that you're spending all this time thinking and writing about. So you need, you know, basic things, great topic sentences, very persuasive headings. And these are things that can take you into email writing into brief writing into just general writing. I think that stayed with me more than more than anything else more than the substance of the law more than the conversations that we had, which I really enjoyed. But that one, I frequently think about them.
Ava McAlpin 17:32
For mine, we were working our client was an artist and an individual and counseling her with no, I mean, she was interested in the law, but not a legal training. And I think that has come full circle for my position. Now at Lincoln Center, I'm working with our colleagues in the different business units who are not legally trained. So the way I counsel in house is a little bit different from when I was at a law firm where my clients were lawyers themselves. So we spent all this time doing a fair use analysis, we read all the cases, we had this whole complicated chart of all the factors and all the different cases. But when it came to speaking with our client, it wasn't going to be as useful to share that kind of product. And we really needed to be direct, and speak with her in terms of counseling, what the risks were, and help her come to her decision of how she wanted to proceed. And that's very much in my practice today as well.
Speaker 6 18:32
I think one insight that I gain by working on my project where we're all as a clinic is that I think that's served as a very good example kind of thinking out of the box for solutions to clients problems and seeing how social change happens. Because I think very often when I think about social change by do like engaging with the law, I think about impact litigation. But there's also like litigation and just like one tool in the box to affect social change. And it happens in the context of social change. And sometimes like when that avenues close to you, there are many other avenues that you can engage in. So for prep for all, they won this challenge, a patent term extension by bringing attention to the gamesmanship behavior that the pharmaceutical company was engaging in. And as I mentioned, previously, we tried to petition the trademark office, but there's a no third party petition your rule, and based on that rule, it was rejected. But that wasn't a it wasn't a useless exercise. Because with that petition in hand, we were able to go to Congress and talk to congressional aides and bring attention to the behavior to what the Gilead the pharmaceutical company was doing. And then eventually, we got a lot of press attention on it. And that's why and then we got congressional members who tweet, you know, bring attention to the public like, like tweet, sorry, tweet, these news articles that's and recently there's another news article that came out like just a couple of months ago, about the same exactly if someone should behavior that the pharmaceutical companies engaged in. So, you know, it's like, there are lots of different ways to try to affect social change. And part of is like all this public attention on the pharmaceutical companies behavior, like applies pressure on them, and because they know the activists are watching them now. And I think this does send a message to a lot of companies that, you know, you try to try to game the system and extend your patent this way, you're gonna get a lot of negative press. And I do think like, that's something that's, that could potentially shape the behavior of these companies. Yeah, so that's, uh, anyway, so like, to wrap it up, I think it's like, really, like, cool to see how even when one avenue is close to you, there are so many mechanisms for you to drive social change. Thanks.
Jake Karr 20:48
So I'm gonna note again, Ethan, you talked a bit about the social justice public interest work that you did in the clinic. But of course, to put it mildly, when you're at a firm in private practice, there's not always such a clear alignment between a sort of general vision of the public interest and the goals of your client. So I wanted to ask the four of you, how do you see the public interest values that the clinic represents? reflected in the work that you've done since whether that's pro bono projects you've taken on the ways in which you approach counseling your private sector clients, different jobs that you've had? And again, Sam, love to start with you.
Samanatha Fink Hedrick 21:37
Sure. Um, yeah. So, you know, this one is, is an interesting one, you know, I actually started at a nonprofit before, and I really started my legal journey at NYU and nonprofit law thinking, there is still a chance I might veer back into that world. I've stayed in the tech world in the private sector, but I think there's a few ways that is, it sticks with me every day one is just understanding different types of organizations really helps you be a better lawyer for whichever one you happen to be representing. And I think being able to see, you know, okay, this is the legal question I'm grappling with today, it would be different for this type of organization and the same organization, the right answer for my client is this. But being able to see all of those views is really important. So I think for me, you know, doing a project with a nonprofit for the clinic, it really helped cement those skills as a lawyer. And because I hadn't been in the nonprofit world for quite some time at that point. So I really love that. And then, you know, the other thing is like, there's, of course, always the question of what is right for your client, but also, just what is great, what is the right thing to do full stop? And then a yes, sometimes there's a different answer for those two questions. But I don't really believe that that's where it ends. So you know, there's a sort of cynical view that could say, well, you know, the answer for your client is whichever one is going to help them make money, their company, they want to make money. That's the end of it. But I never believed that. I don't believe that. I don't think that's ever where it stopped. So I think for me, you know, really thinking about things from the different lenses of different types of organizations also really helps answer that question of what is the right answer overall. And I think there's, there's very often space to say, Okay, well, we could do this, and we can make lots of money. Or we can do this, because it's the right thing to do. And here's why this actually helps you in the long run. And that to me, that's, that's kind of always the answer. So, again, just having those different perspectives, I think really helps you figure out how you want to counsel your client. Thanks.
Florina Yezril 23:49
So my answer is framed as a big law associate, who, although I can volunteer for more work, I rarely get to choose the cases I'm on. So to address the point from some of the students speakers earlier, I get to pick when I'm picking pro bono, one of my favorite organizations is start small, think big, and I've worked with multiple clients there to do things like website Terms of Service, or really basic licenses. And that's just the best way where I get to choose and I choose the things that are more technology oriented. So if anyone, you know, if your firm works with them, or if you just want to reach out, it's it's a great place to work with.
Jake Karr 24:27
Do you mind just talking a little bit about their mission, what they do? So
Florina Yezril 24:31
they help with both legal I think some financial and marketing as well, advice for businesses that make I think it's under $1 million a year. And the people that I've spoken to through there are much smaller than that. Most recently, I worked with a babysitting service that's located in Midtown, and they're trying to attract people through their website. And so, you know, they have a forum on their website where they're asking for children's names and ages and As they collect credit card information through their website, and then it goes to an email inbox. And for me, I'm not, you know, my main job is not a privacy attorney. But I know enough that I'm like, you know, there's some red flags here, you should probably consider not doing it like this. And reframing the things that you know, that are setting off, I can see in the audience all these alarm bells into somebody who is trying so hard to grapple with the changes in their business that are happening, you know, as more people are working from home as the COVID shutdown is, you know, decimating their business. How do you change is there are more and more services like Bright Horizons that are taking away the business that you've been counting on for your staff? And the question is, how do you frame those issues that would both serve her not set off, you know, any panic that unnecessarily but they would try to get her a little bit more protected in case something does go wrong.
Ava McAlpin 25:59
So I was talking with Jason before about how I'm maybe the interloper on this panel. Because I do work at a nonprofit, it is obviously a major institution in the city. So there are certain things in terms of just being a in the general counsel's office that has some similarities to more big law, or we're a private organization. But we are a nonprofit, and very much I moved made the move, because I was so attracted to working for an organization that has a mission. And our mission is very much seeing ourselves at the center of the city, and promoting civic good and putting the arts in the center of that, and what the importance is of the arts to the well being of the community. So everything we do is is around that lens and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, a lot of people don't know, this actually is a separate 501 C three from all but constituents are not the Metropolitan Opera, we're not the New York City Ballet, we have contractual relationships with all of them. But Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts manages the campus. And then we have our own programming. And currently, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts programming is all either free or choose what you pay. So that's in that transformation that choose what you pay. As you can imagine, there's some interesting legal questions that came came up around that and figuring out how to make that work out. But we're very much here to serve our community and the city. But before that, when I was at a law firm to it, as Marina mentioned, pro bono work and general block has won for years, many, many, many consecutive years as the number one pro bono firm. So in addition to having a strong content, media and entertainment practice, I was attracted to their commitment to pro bono, and the ability to just serve that way. And I'm also on the associates board of volunteer lawyers for the arts and did volunteer lawyers for the arts cases, when I was how to how to form.
Speaker 6 27:55
Thank you. I think the bulk of my work is kind of neither here nor there. But occasionally I get to work on certain projects where I can kind of get the hang of discussion about like the public's interest, or get the client to consider some aspects of that. So I think drafting of privacy policies is one of those projects where someone's interested in launching a website to sell a product or service. So ask them questions about what kind of tracking technologies are you using, because they have to disclose all that in the privacy policy for compliance purposes. But then you also try to get the client to think beyond just mere compliance with the bare minimum. But also think like, the bigger picture, like what was the look like for the person that was like holding that data, for instance, and you can sometimes deliver it is this advice and like, in the language of like, how, like risk management or or like, you know, you want to maintain like, a good relationship with the public? So it's like, or like, you know, like, do you need to use the Facebook pixel, for instance, because there's currently a lot lots of litigation happening around that you might potentially run into trouble. Or if you're trying to project like a more privacy, like protective image, it's not, it's not a good thing to have to be using this tracking technology. So I think sometimes you can get them to do like, you know, much better than just meeting the bare minimum of for compliance reasons, but also thinking more about just kind of like data hygiene. And yeah,
Jake Karr 29:29
thank you. So shifting gears slightly, I think I personally, but I think we all would love to just hear a little bit more about what you all are up to and your current roles. And specifically, like, to the extent you can talk about it, what's a cool Teflon policy issue or project that you've had to handle recently? So Sam, again, we'll start with you if you don't mind.
Samanatha Fink Hedrick 29:55
Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I love about my job is that everything feels like A new project city every day, I came in as we
Jake Karr 30:04
all get that job.
Samanatha Fink Hedrick 30:08
Honestly follow your GED, you get a vibe, if you're really going to love something, just follow what you love to do. You know, I think for me, like my, my happy place has always been contracts and IP, I came into full story as layer number two, and we've been growing little team, and I have to come in and sort of, you know, build a commercial function and just say, okay, you know, here's everything that I've learned in my career to date from the firm from Google from law school, here's how I think we should do contracts at fullstory. And that's kind of a cool thing to be able to just say, you know, okay, I think I know how to do this. And it's a, it's an interesting thing to do for the first time, but I love it. There's a lot of freedom, there's a lot of letter space to say, you know, this is how I believe that things should be done. And that's something that really excites me. And then, you know, when you're at a startup, you kind of do a little of everything. Even I was laughing when you said that you didn't do a patents, classes NYU, because that is probably one of my biggest regrets. If my see once a year, it conflicted with copyright. And in my real, you're conflicted with trademarks. So I never took patents either. But now I'm kind of added during it run our whole portfolio. So you know, I did have a slip certification for privacy from my years at Google. But I kind of promised myself I would never be a privacy attorney. But yeah, sure, come on those sort of privacy journey, like, when you're going to house a startup, you're doing everything. And you need to know enough to be able to raise those red flags. But you also just need to know what you don't know and rely on a network of people to help you. So even for me, you know, obviously, I don't trust myself to manage a patent portfolio completely on my own. But we have excellent outside counsel who I do trust, and you can, you know, sort of rely on those experts. But I've reached out to my professors, way too many times to just say, Hey, I'm grappling with this weird issue. Here's what I think the, you know, the right answer is, do you agree? Do you think I should do something differently? How would you approach this, and I kind of love that. So I wouldn't even point to like a specific thing and saying, This is my cool project. I just love it every day is a new challenge. Things are coming up, we're you know, building new products dealing with, you know, how how technology evolves. And you know, certainly if I had to point to one thing, we like every company on the planet pretty much right now are trying to grapple with the, the potential uses of AI in our space. And that's certainly something that we're we're grappling with every day. But you know, the reality is like, you just need to know your craft really well, and be able to adapt it to whatever comes through the door that day. And that's, that's what I love about my job. Thanks.
Florina Yezril 33:05
I don't think I have anything as cool to say, like, kind of like doing due diligence. And that's not I mean, I just you get to see a lot of other people's contracts. And after a while, you start seeing, you're like, Hey, you made some terrible choices, or, Hey, this is really elegantly written like this is this is elegant. I never thought I would say that. But the one cool project that I got to do was because somebody was out on leave. And that was to help a social media company who was revising their user terms and policies, and so not we I wasn't working on the terms of use in general. And I wasn't working on the privacy policy in particular, but there were a lot of like tertiary policies about there was a separate IP ownership policy, where if somebody is reusing, you know, who owns what, and what does the company get to own and what other users get to use. And just sort of different ways of incentivizing users. And it was very interesting, because this was one of the earliest projects that I've gotten to do where you're not doing anything in a vacuum, like anything you suggested inside counsel. They're gonna take back that week or the next week to go to the engineers and the engineers are like, no, but it'd be really cool if we had this data, like we really want this data and, and, you know, how do you communicate that so that the company is abiding by the terms of their reporting to put out that was really fun. That was that was like the coolest thing I've gotten to do. Those terms are not live still. So I can't tell you what it is. But it was cool. It was fun.
Ava McAlpin 34:40
One of my biggest fears I really weren't liked litigation and I really liked working at the firm I worked at one of my biggest fears moving in house was that I was going to be bored just working on contracts. And I can tell you safely that is very much not true. Like Sam I just every day is a new interesting question. Trin an issue that comes up and not all of them in the technology and policy, space, but a lot. And so I do a lot of work for our venue sales team and our programming team and our social media team. And venue sales, you might not immediately think IP, but we do a lot of film shoots, TV shows and their IP questions will come up. Of course, we're this iconic space in the middle of the city. And we have all sorts of public art and art. And so thinking through all the layers of who owns what, and, and making sure that there's proper clearances for the particular uses At issue is something that comes up in programming when we're commissioning new works, putting protections in the contract for us, but also working with artists to make sure you know that their process and their vision can come to life. And also at the same time mitigate risks is always always interesting. Ai, of course, everybody's talking about AI. If this panel was a year ago, everybody was talking about the metaverse and those those issues are coming up. And we're, you know, trying to do art in those spaces. Well, AI from the perspective of commissioning art, and then also just what do we do with our own our own staff and our own policies around use of AI and using AI to create social media posts, things like that? I don't know. I could go on and on. I mean, will they example a non tech space? One question that came up was I had to research Clive law and what position various flags needed to be on in campus. It really runs the gamut, I am constantly learning new things, amazing.
Speaker 6 36:43
Things by one cool project might be a pro bono work. But no matter I'm taking on and it's gonna sound extremely boring. It's trademark registration. And it's just a very, like, there's nothing like special, like legally interesting about this trademark registration matter. But I thought about like, like, I can make a case for like, why this is cool. And before law school, I used to work as a fundraiser. And I know that like supporting colleagues who are doing things or are just changing the world, or fighting the good fight and doing things that sound really cool. Whereas like, I'm just trying to raise money. And that doesn't sound very cool and itself, but like maintenance work is cool in the sense. And that like in order for the cool stuff to happen, someone needs to be doing all this stuff behind the scenes. And, and I think like with trademark registration, I'm helping a friend out who is the leader of a nonprofit, they're looking to merge with another organization to strengthen their policy arm, and they need to register the need to do a trademark clearance and then a trademark registration. And as part of this merger, and I'm like I'm making this project happen, it's a project that they're working on, it's super cool, they're doing really great work. And I'm doing this thing doesn't necessarily that's within my skill sets, because they need someone to do have to have some sort of trademark experience. And like they don't know anyone who knows how to do that, except for me. And like, I'm happy to lend a hand and do this thing, even though it's like, there's nothing legally interesting about doing this. But it's, it's, but you know, I think there are many different ways to support things or have really cool things are happening. So and I liked it. I also liked doing kind of like behind the scenes work. So that's, that's my cool project. super
Jake Karr 38:26
interesting. And I think helpful, especially for current students who are in the room to think about what paths they might be taking, and the sort of work that they might be able to do in each of those paths. And so in that vein, Sam, and I know you, you mentioned your, one of your biggest regrets in law school is not taking patents for the current students in the room. What advice do you have for them, if they want to pursue a career in tech law and policy more generally, to pursue a career that somewhat aligns with the paths that you all have taken? And what experiences should they be trying to soak up and law school? Or what are what are the sort of next legal legal frontiers that they should be concerned about thinking about? Am I able to use your formulation? Like if we had this panel? Last year, we would be talking about the metaverse this year, it's AI and like five years, what, you know, the 15 year reunion, what are going to be the sets of legal issues that future alums of the clinic, who are current students now who are going to be on this panel in five years, and you're all out there? Should be thinking about now. So
Samanatha Fink Hedrick 39:40
yeah. I'm actually not going to say take patents. I do wish I had taken that. But just take classes that you really love that really excite you and figure out what that is. I think a lot of my friends in law school were just so focused on what should I take, what should I do? How do I get from We A to point B, that they kind of forget to have fun in law school, and just enjoy some of the, you know, the academic fun of it. So just, you know, don't worry so much about which classes you really should take, take the things that excite you and interest you. But also, you know, don't, don't just dive down one rabbit hole tried to get as much of a breadth of experience as you can. So, you know, I love when people say, Well, I don't want to be a privacy layer. So I'm not going to take price. I'm like, Well, you should definitely take privacy class, if you're going into tech law. Full stop. But you know, you should just assume that you are going to be a generalist in your career, you may end up focusing, and maybe that's what you decide that you really love I case, jump down that rabbit hole, have fun with it. But you know, I think there's a lot of twists and turns in a career. And if you have a breadth of knowledge, you will be prepared to get yourself a deeper understanding of the things that really come up with your day to day job. But though the way my biggest thing is, yeah, the other one is just focus on the people, you're happy to remember, like, you know, three years from now and freely writing, remember which classes you took specifically, but you are going to remember your professors, you're definitely going to remember your your classmates just formed deep connection with the people around you. And I reached out to my professors all the time, like I said, to ask for advice, it's my job to ask about what they're doing to just say, hi, because I miss them. I have a cookie party every year I send them cookies, and it just, you know, talk to people around you really form those connections, because this is your chance to do that. And they will follow you forever.
Florina Yezril 41:37
Thanks. So one thing that I think everyone here has heard each of us up here say is that we are doing work that relates to contracts. As a law student, you only see litigation, even your contracts, courses, only litigation. So until I was in this clinic, and working for the New York Public Library on some like one page, two page agreements, I had no exposure to what it was like to be a lawyer and not do litigation. I think that's the biggest regret that I have. And the thing that I say to all law students who are asking me, Hey, you know, I'm thinking about this. And I say, Well, have you thought about not going into litigation, because although I've really enjoyed my time, the exit opportunities, unless you want to go to litigation at a bank are poor. So if you can get any experience, just any experience, that is not litigation, jump on it, whether it's a class for patent licensing, whether it's a clinical experience, whether it's pro bono work, because I discovered much later than I should have that I really like corporate work. And if I had begun it sooner, I think things would be looking very differently.
Ava McAlpin 42:54
I go both piece of advice is that would that's kind of where I was going to go as well. I was a litigator and moving in house. You know, I think it is easier to make that transition. That's probably what all litigators would say, I think the litigators and the transactional attorneys like to think that like you can't learn, learn the opposite, opposite ways. But I do think that's true, because at least in litigation, when you're in a firm, you are looking at a contract. And usually you're seeing something that's gone wrong. And seeing it from that perspective. So you have some familiarity with it. But it's still not the same as sitting down and drafting a contract. And at Lincoln Center, we're really fortunate, we're, we've worked with the business transactions clinic here at NYU for a number of years. And Levine, who I know is no longer teaching that clinic but teaches a contract drafting course that I understand is one of the most popular courses at the law school, I highly recommend you take that course, I wish I'd taken that course. I think it's just amazing to get that opportunity to have contract experience when you're in law school. indemnification limitation of liability. That's kind of what it all comes down to and, and contract no matter what it's about. So understanding those concepts and knowing how to pull those levers to mitigate risk. And then to echo what Sam was saying, really, you learned to be a lawyer after law school. I mean, clinic helps clinic and that's to echo Florina, taking clinic and Sam as well, taking clinic that's really great because you get some of your tip, dip your toe in the water of learning what it's like to be a practicing lawyer. But most of what I learned in terms of really practicing was at the law firm and like my job now. So take classes that you enjoy, learn the doctrine, engage with it and have fun.
Speaker 6 44:43
I don't have much anything new to add. I want to echo everyone's advice. Like I want to echo what Sam said, Take a wide breadth of classes and take classes and things you're interested in. Don't think about whether or not it's going to be useful for career because I think there's a lot of random lightness in life and you don't know where In the end up, you might not like the first job that you're at and then wondering is for something else, and then it might come to come to be useful in the future. And Yun echoing Eva Florina. I think contracts is a good idea. I took the contract drafting class, when the Vienna was a really great class, you're probably going to encounter contracts at some point when we're other. And sometimes like, just even like in your personal life, he sometimes he does sign contracts and like, look at your lease or whatever. And it's like, I find that like contract drafting, it's, it's helpful. Yeah, anything else to add?
Florina Yezril 45:37
So can I make one addition? Please go ahead, your summer associate. That's also an opportunity when you can try something new. Definitely take advantage of that. Because once you're started, you don't have so much bandwidth.
Jake Karr 45:51
I want to read direct this question slightly. I just asked you all, if you had advice for students, I want to ask you, if you have advice for the clinic, on clinical program at NYU more broadly. What sorts of experiences should we be creating for our students skills, we should be providing them with training for to help prepare them for careers in the tech law policy space? Really? What do you wish you had done in the clinic? Or at NYU? Or learned in the clinic or at NYU that you've been? Looking back? Sam?
Samanatha Fink Hedrick 46:28
Yeah. So I think the first thing, there's a couple things that I'd say one of them is, how to learn something completely new completely from scratch, on your own outside the classroom. And that is something that you are going to have to do at your job no matter what you do. And I think, you know, part of your previous question about, you know, for students, what's it like, sort of the next thing that they should be looking for? I kind of intentionally didn't answer that, because it kind of doesn't matter. I mean, you know, we've seen so many spikes in technology, so many new evolutions in technology. We don't know what the next thing is. That's great. That's exciting. That's awesome. That is the whole point of technology. But, you know, when you go out into the world, you are going to be, you're not on here, but you're going to be more on your own than you are now. And you're not going to be able to just walk into class and say, Hey, tell me how to do this thing to me, like the right answer is. So just, you know, being able to say, okay, here are the things that I do know, I do know the basics of copyright law, I do you know, the basics of, you know, a patent law, and say, Okay, here's the issue of grappling with, how might that translate into this thing? Now, let me do some research and see if other people are saying similar things. You know, oh, gosh, someone else said, you know, this thing, how do I interpret that and just sort of braid it all together into coherent advice for your client. So just like being able to learn something, outside of a classroom, without a textbook without a professor, is a really, really, really important skill. And then the other thing, which is advice that was given to me when I started at Google, by forever, and always my favorite boss I've ever had, and probably ever will. said to me, we're not here to say no. Lawyer say no, a lot. We're not here to say no. We're here to tell someone how to get to yes. So hey, can we do this thing? Yes, but yes, but if you do that, you'll go to jail. And
you're there to say, you know, sure, you can do that. But here's what will happen if you do. You know, yes. And if we did this thing, you know, on top of that, that would be even better. And here's why. You know, yes, but what if we do it this way? Instead? Or, you know, yes, but we really need this thing. So where can we, you know, insert this, like, you know, if, for example, you need someone to accept your online terms in order to use your service. Okay, well, how can we do that in a really seamless way? So like, you know, we're in the signup flow is the right place to put this, how do we do it the best way, but you're not there to say, you know, knowing can't do this thing. It's really helping your client figure out how to achieve their goals in the best way possible. And that's, that takes creativity. There's there's a different answer every single time you answer that question. And that's a really important skill that I think a lot of people don't think about, until they're out of law school. It's like when you're in law school, you're like, what's the right answer? What's the right way to do a thing? But that really depends on what your goals are. And your goals are gonna be very different, not only for every client, but for every transaction for every client. So if you're negotiating a contract, what's your actual goal? Are you there to get the deal done with reasonable risk? Are you there to truly say we don't want any risk in this deal? Or either is a you know, hey, we got assigned to thing today. So what's the one red flag we should care? are about, but if you're gonna negotiate or differently and all those situations, so just sort of understanding the context for what you're doing, and how to get there on your own, is the most important skill. And I think the clinic did a great job of that for me when I was advising, you know, our client on the phone, call yourself and also the terms of service, but really hone those skills and help students figure out how to do that on their own.
Florina Yezril 50:24
So to jump off from Sam's point about goals, I think, the most valuable thing, so I guess mine is also not what you should do better, but keep up the good work, when most valuable things was having. Having a client having an audience who is not just a professor who gives you one grade and you move on, is really valuable. Because until you are at a law firm and are getting a little more senior, the only thing you do is send work up. Whereas in the clinic, working with the public library, our audience first went through, you know, the professors and then it went to the in house counsel but thorough audience was the business people in the business people in the in house, people maybe had some tension about what the goals are, I don't remember. So don't take this as any like one particular client. But like it's having that and knowing the best way to present what not just do your work product, but how to present your work product and how to give alternatives so that they can make their best decisions. Using your input is, is something that only clinics can provide. And that's, I think, the most valuable thing.
Ava McAlpin 51:29
I don't think I'm adding anything particularly new but it just to reiterate what what both chlorine and spam has had providing a space to learn about counseling and being creative. Working in a creative institution, the legal department is often viewed as the suits and you know, the Department of No, we very much reject that we are the Department of Yes, as Pam said. And also I think what we do is extremely creative, trying to get to solutions for some of the very, very, very creative ideas, our clients of how we can can execute those in as little time as possible. And reasonable and risk free manner. But so just learning to be creative, having a space to experiment, and come up with different ideas and find your voice and then also develop your own opinions, but then also learn how to counsel and keep your opinions, the inform your counseling for sure, but then also helping your client come to their own decision, because ultimately, it is our clients decision on on a lot of the calls. And we're just helping them to get to a certain place.
Speaker 6 52:43
I like the diversity of projects that are in the space, because I get to learn a lot of areas of law that I didn't previously know about, like I didn't have a good idea of like what tech law encompasses. And I learned about access to this. And that then the whole space of the project I was working. And so I think it's so I can keep that keep that up. I also really like the diversity of speakers we show up because then I get a better sense of what careers are out there besides the more obvious ones like big law, or the better known public interest organizations. So.
Jake Karr 53:29
If you remember, but so I'm going to put you all down for so Kiana on the last panel said that the clinic was perfect. It sounds like you all agree. We have a few minutes left. I do have more questions. But I did want to leave space for folks from the audience. If anyone has any questions. I think that mic has disappeared. There's a mic over there. We could also come in hand you a mic if anyone has questions. Please. Yeah, I do want to see if that that one was working.
Speaker 7 54:09
I think it's working. So I think a few people touched on this. I remember Sam and Ethan's comments about this. But I guess you're working with private organizations. But you know, you're in the clinic and one of the clinics values is public interest. So how do you talk to clients about public interest? And maybe that client cares about their bottom line? And is it just you're talking about litigation risks that happens to like align with public interest values? Are you talking about reputational harms? How do you have that conversation?
Speaker 6 54:39
Well, in the context of drafting a privacy policy, I'll ask them about you know, why why they're collecting certain type of data and was used for because sometimes I think there's a belief that like, the more data you collect the better regardless of whether or not you know what it's for and if you have any use for it. Because like, just in case like in the future, you might have be able to like do some thing with that data. So you might want to Blake I believe in privacy by design principles. And this is my view. So you try to advise them and can talk about, like the risk of you collecting so much data and not having a good plan on like, how to manage it. And like when, and like to maintain the integrity of it like that, that could be a problem in the long run, there could be upcoming legislation. And there's a lot of state laws that's being passed right now. So I think that's one way you can talk about it. And at the end of the day, it's, you can give your advice, and the client doesn't listen to you. It's just what it is, can't really do much about they have their own interests and their own projects that they're working on. And you try to steer them in a direction that you think it's like it's best for both their business interests, but also good for the public, public interests. But that's the most you can really do.
Florina Yezril 55:56
I don't talk to clients about public interest, it does not come up your point about reputational harm, that sometimes comes up, that's the best place where you have an avenue to be like, you know, this would look pretty bad if it got out or this would look really bad if this is the move you choose to make. And then also, this is I think less of a hot issue lately. But in the patent troll context, there are clients who want to litigate a patent case all the way and then seek attorneys fees and be really aggressive. And that's a public interest thing softly because even though it's them trying to get money out of a third party, really, it's we wanted to deter bad actors from taking advantage of the system. And I love being on those cases. So to the extent I can avoid being on a patent troll case, on the plaintiff side, I
Ava McAlpin 56:42
will I think that from my perspective, it comes up for my clients all the time, again, from the booths, we're a nonprofit, and we're looking to see what we can do to make the arts more accessible. So choose what you pay free programming. We're trying to be as artists friendly as possible in our contracts, making our contracts, legible and readable for for artists who don't have counsel and don't have representation and taking the stance that this is their art, they they own it not not us and to really working through our contracts to make them as simple and easy to read as possible. And take really balanced approach. And that's all driven by by my clients.
Samanatha Fink Hedrick 57:26
Yeah, and I think I'll just add, you know, one really important thing to remember is that, yes, your lawyer, you're there to give legal advice, but you can also get business advice. And I think, you know, a lot of the times lawyers are almost like afraid to stray past, you know, the legal advice. And especially if you end up in house, you are a very valuable perspective that your business teams have not had exposure to for the most part. So you might see a way that lawyers could be a customer of lifting that your company creates. And it might be a product idea that no one's ever thought of because they're not lawyers. You know, we don't know. But you can give the advice to say, yes, technically, you can do the thing that you're asking me? If you can do the answer is yes. But isn't there a better way to do it? What if we did this? What if you did that? What if you didn't do this thing? What if you you know, inserted something here to tell people about why this thing is happening? Like there's just so many things that you can see that you know, that perspective may not exist in the edge team in the sales team in the marketing team, so don't be afraid to just give your view
Jake Karr 58:45
Thank you. So sadly, we're past time so we have to leave it there. Can you all join me in thanking our panel? Another half hours straight and next and final.
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