Data has transformed the way businesses and institutions operate. Globally laws and regulations are reacting to technological changes to encourage responsible data practices. Information privacy, data protection and artificial intelligence concerns are fueling a fast growing field ideally suited to law-trained professionals. That’s why Maine Law offers a series of summer courses on critical and current information privacy issues designed to introduce students to this dynamic domain.
Existing attorneys can leverage the session to earn CLE credits or venture into a growing and dynamic new practice area; current J.D. candidates can develop a valuable specialty while still in school. Whether you’re deeply familiar with information privacy law or new to the subject, this summer session could change your career.
2023 Information Privacy Summer Institute
The annual Information Privacy Summer Institute was held from May 22 – June 8, 2023 on the Maine Law Campus, 300 Fore Street. A special one-day Privacy in Practice Conference was held on June 2, 2023 as part of the Summer Institute.
Registration was open to Professionals and J.D. students.
Visiting Law Students from Other Law Schools:
Students currently enrolled at other ABA approved law schools who have completed their first year and are in good standing may request to enroll by completing a Non-Degree Student Registration Form. We also require a letter from the Dean of their law school certifying that the applicant is in good standing and has completed or is in the process of completing their first year of law study.
Non-degree/Special Students:
Applicants not currently enrolled in an ABA approved law school program may enroll in Summer Session classes with the permission of the Associate Dean and course instructor. Special students may request to enroll by completing a Non-Degree Student Registration Form. Special students will be admitted based on available space. Credits obtained by a special student in the Summer Session may not be applied toward a J.D. degree at this law school if the student becomes a candidate for that degree in the future.
Summer 2023 Course Offerings
Global Privacy Law (2 credits)
Monday, May 22 – Thursday, May 25, 9 am – 4:30 pm
Personal data is the raw material for business models in industries ranging from online advertising, social networking, cloud computing, health, and financial services. Governments, too, rely on personal data for purposes such as national security and law enforcement, urban planning and traffic control, public health, and education. Emerging technologies greatly enhanced data collection, storage, and analysis. In this context, public and commercial interests strain against individual rights, with privacy law serving as the mediator. This course will place privacy within a social and legal context and will investigate the complex grid of legal structures and institutions that govern privacy at state, national, and international levels. Students will be taught how to critically analyze privacy problems and make observations about sources of law and their interpretation, with an emphasis on the global nature of data. The final grade will be based on class attendance/participation and a take-home exam.
Professor Bio:
Gabe Maldoff is an associate in Goodwin’s Data, Privacy, and Cybersecurity practice. He provides a global perspective on privacy, data protection, and technology law issues, drawing from his experience practicing in the UK, US, and with an international think tank.
Gabe is also an Adjunct Professor at Maine Law School where he teaches a course called Global Privacy Law. His research on US, Canadian and European privacy and national security laws has featured in journals in the US and Europe. He currently serves as a member of the Arbitration Panel for the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework.
Artificial Intelligence Law and Policy (1 credit)
Tuesday, May 30 & Wednesday, May 31, 9 am – 4:30 pm
Topics covered in this one-credit bridge course include AI history, AI policy frameworks and governance, AI regulation, intersection with other bodies of law, and online contracts for AI services. Referential materials survey work in this field by the OECD, NIST, the European Commission, and the US Federal Trade Commission. Additionally, students will have the opportunity to integrate learnings about key developments in the history of AI and machine learning and will focus on application of concepts to the most recent generative AI offerings of OpenAI and Google. This is a pass/fail course.
Professor Bio
Justin Weiss is Associate General Counsel – Digital and Regulatory – for Naspers & Prosus, a global internet group and one of the largest technology investors in the world. In his role, he oversees attorneys focusing on privacy, intellectual property, and competition law. Prior to his recent promotion, Justin served as head of global data privacy where he counseled executives, corporate finance, artificial intelligence, product, engineering and public policy teams on data policy, risk and privacy programme management, and ran the group’s data privacy secondment programme. Previously, Justin served as Assistant General Counsel for Privacy & International Policy at Yahoo!, representing the company before world governments, APEC, the COE, the EU’s Article 29 Working Party and technology, Internet, mobile and media-focused trade associations on regulatory matters.
Justin is currently pursuing a diploma in Global Business from the highly-selective Said Business School at the University of Oxford, where he recently completed the Oxford Artificial Intelligence Programme.
U.S. State and Federal Privacy Regimes (1 credit)
Thursday, June 1 & Friday, June 2, 9 am – 4:30 pm
This course will familiarize students with the various and growing US state privacy laws and the foundations of US privacy law enforcement, from the perspective of a lawyer who has served as a privacy regulator at both the state and federal levels. We will examine the underlying policy tensions and debates, and how they play out in the various state laws. We will also cover the role of policy advocacy, analyzing the privacy law developments taking place in state legislatures and Congress from different stakeholder perspectives. The second day of this course is the annual Privacy in Practice conference.
Professor Bio:
Ryan Kriger is an attorney with the Federal Trade Commission’s Division of Privacy and Identity Protection. Prior to moving for the FTC, Ryan worked for over a decade as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Vermont where he handled consumer protection and antitrust issues with a focus on technology and data security. He was also the primary negotiator for Vermont’s first-in-nation Data Broker registration law. Ryan teaches classes on consumer protection, privacy, public policy and advocacy at the University of Vermont. In his spare time Ryan enjoys writing, woodworking, and occasionally performs stand-up comedy.
Ryan moved to Vermont from New York City in 2011 and has been grateful for CVHS since he adopted Maggie, arguably the best dog that has ever existed.
Decentralized Data Governance (2 credits)
Monday, June 5 – Thursday, June 8, 9 am – 4:30 pm
Students will learn the foundational technological principles that underpin the internet. Then, we will cover the evolution from Web1 to Web3: the journey the internet made from an unregulated world of largely open-source protocols without much concern regarding the value or protection of user data to the internet we experience today, and, eventually, to the potential future internet that decentralization advocates are pushing for. With this foundational understanding, the students will spend the bulk of the course exploring how any shift toward decentralization impacts user data, necessitates trade-offs in values, and demands novel approaches to privacy and consumer protection generally. The course will familiarize students with core principles of antitrust, constitutional law, privacy law, and consumer protection law, and how each of these academic disciplines relates to data today and what each of these disciplines has to say about a transition to decentralizing data governance. Grading will based on: class participation and a final paper.
Professor Bio:
Chinmayi Sharma is a Scholar in Residence at the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law and a Lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. Her research and teaching focus on cybersecurity law and policy. She is a member of the Internet Law Foundry and was a Yale Cyber Leadership Fellow. She has written extensively for Lawfare, primarily on the topics of cybersecurity and government surveillance. Before joining the Strauss Center, Chinmayi worked at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP in Washington, D.C., focusing primarily on spectrum policy and privacy matters, and clerked for Chief Judge Michael F. Urbanski of the Western District of Virginia.