Reception Will Mark 25th Anniversary of JCIL, and Founding of the Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law

The John Marshall Law School Office of Alumni Relations is planning a Sept. 28, 2012, event marking the 25th anniversary of the Journal of Computer and Information Law (JCIL), and the 30th anniversary of the Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law.

Alumni, students and friends of the Center are invited to the 5 to 7 p.m. event in the law school’s Student Commons.

“We look forward to seeing all of you who, like Professor Emeritus George Trubow, thought computers were going to be the way of the future. Come share your stories of Professor Trubow, give us insights into some of the first legal questions you examined dealing with privacy law, or tell us about your time on the Journal,” urged Sherri Berendt, director of Alumni Relations.

“This will be a fun event that will give us a chance to learn how much John Marshall, and information technology and privacy law, or Informatics Law as we called it for a time have changed the past 30 years.”

“The Journal is a showpiece of the Center,” said Professor Leslie Ann Reis, director of the Center. “As a former member of JCIL and now its faculty editor, I am extremely proud of all that it has achieved, including recognition as one of the most cited technology journals in the world.

“I’m looking forward to celebrating the Journal’s accomplishments with all those, past and present, who built it and are carrying it into the future,” she added.

The reception will be co-hosted by the Office of Alumni Relations and the Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law. It will be the culmination for a Sept. 27 and 28 symposium, “The Development of Privacy Law From Brandeis to Today.” Visit events.jmls.edu/IT-reunion for details.

The Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law was the brainchild of Trubow who recognized the role computers would play in society. He had been a John Marshall faculty member from 1961 through 1965 before accepting a position with a federal agency in Washington, DC.

Between 1965 and 1975, Trubow first served as deputy counsel for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Improvements in Judicial Machinery. He then went to the U.S. Department of Justice serving as deputy director at the Office of Law Enforcement Programs and director of the Office of Inspection and Review for the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration. He went on to be general counsel for the Domestic Council Committee on the Right of Privacy, which was a cabinet-level committee chaired by then Vice President Gerald Ford.

Trubow also undertook a study on personal privacy and information technology for the American Bar Association.

With that wealth of experience and an understanding of what the legal challenges would be, Trubow returned to John Marshall and started teaching Computers and the Law, examining the legal aspects of computer use. In 1980, Trubow expanded the curriculum to include Information Law and Policy Seminar, and in 1982 he taught the Right of Privacy Seminar.

In 1982, the law school established Law for the Information Era as a new concentration, recognizing it as a “new and developing area of legal practice.” That also was the year the law school conducted the first moot court privacy competition underwritten by the Benton Foundation. Today it is hosted as the International Moot Court Competition in Information Technology and Privacy Law.

Dean Leonard Schrager gave Trubow the task of organizing a Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law. In 1983 it became the first of its kind in the country.

Trubow set three goals for the Center: 1) Reinforce the protection of individual privacy; 2) Monitor and evaluate the economic, social and political effects of information technology and practices as they relate to law; 3) Train attorneys in technology and privacy law.

In 1988, the re-named Center for Informatics Law, accepted management of The Software Journal, being published under the direction of Michael Scott at the Center for Computer Law in Manhattan Beach, Calif. After successfully publishing for six years, the Center merged the Software Journal with another of Scott’s publications, the Computer Law Journal.

This new publication was renamed The Journal of Computer and Information Law in 1994. The honors program, student-run publication focuses on law and policy related to developments in information technology and privacy law.

In 1996, the Center name reverted to the Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law. The law school faculty approved an LLM degree in Information Technology and Privacy Law in 1998.

Always on the cutting edge, the Center has recognized new areas of concentration, including Cyberspace Law taught in 1995 as the first course of its kind in the country. Over time the Center has continued expanding its course roster, including Electronic Commerce Law, Information Warfare and Electronic Espionage, E-Discovery, Digital Evidence, and Health Information Privacy.

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