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Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school's Center for Internet and Society. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, he was the Berkman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and a Professor at the University of Chicago. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.

For much of his career, Professor Lessig focused on law and technology, especially as it affects copyright. He represented web site operator Eric Eldred in the ground-breaking case Eldred v. Ashcroft, a challenge to the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. His current academic work addresses a kind of "corruption."

He has won numerous awards, including the Free Software Foundation's Freedom Award, and was named one of Scientific American's Top 50 Visionaries, for arguing "against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online."

Professor Lessig is the author of Remix (2008), Code v2 (2007), Free Culture (2004), The Future of Ideas (2001) and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999). He is on the board of the Creative Commons project, MAPLight, Free Press, Brave New Film Foundation, Change Congress, The American Academy, Berlin and iCommons.org. He is on the advisory board of the Sunlight Foundation and LiveJournal. He has served on the board of the Free Software Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Public Library of Science, and Public Knowledge. He was also a columnist for Wired, Red Herring, and the Industry Standard.

Professor Lessig earned a BA in economics and a BS in management from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in philosophy from Cambridge, and a JD from Yale.

Professor Lessig teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, contracts, and the law of cyberspace.

Books

Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Creativity Penguin Press, 2004

Code v2, and Other Laws of Cyberspace Basic Books, 2006

The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World Random House, 2001

Code, and Other Laws of Cyberspace Basic Books, 1999

Honors and Awards

2006 National Law Journal Ò100 Most Influential Lawyers in America

2003 Free Software Foundation Award for the Advancement of Free Software

2002 Scientific American, Top 50 Innovators

2002 Editors’ Choice, Best Non-Technical Book, Linux Journal

2001 World Technology Award for Law

2001 International Technology Network Annual Award

2001 BusinessWeek “25 Top eBiz Leaders”

2000 National Law Journal’s “100 Most Influential Lawyers”

2000 BusinessWeek “25 Top eBiz Leaders”