News & Events

Professor Jessica Litman, a leading expert on intellectual property and trademark law, delivered the 2008 distinguished intellectual property Lecture on “Copyright Reform” on March 20 at the School of Law.

An acclaimed author and lecturer, professor Litman teaches copyright law, trademark law and internet law at the University of Michigan School of Law. Before joining the faculty at Michigan, she also taught law at Wayne State University, NYU and American University Washington College of Law. She is the author of the book, Digital Copyright, and co-author of the casebook, Trademark and Unfair Competition Law: Cases and Materials.

Professor Litman is a trustee of the Copyright Society of the USA and a member of the advisory board for Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C.-based public advocacy organization. She is also a member of the Intellectual Property and Internet Committee of the ACLU.

if the name sounds familiar, that’s because Professor Litman is part of a family of distinguished attorneys. She is the daughter of Roslyn M. Litman, ’52, founder of the Litman Law Firm, an adjunct faculty member and a member of the School of Law’s Board of Visitors, and the late S. David Litman, ’51. Professor Litman’s brother, Harry, is a former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Helping lawyers and academics think about how their values shape their roles in the profession and in society was the topic of a conference at the School of Law this February.

George Lakoff, a prominent professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, was the keynote speaker at the day-long program entitled, “The 21st Century Brain: Why It Matters for the Academic and Political Worlds.” Prof. Lakoff is the author of several influential books, including Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think and Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate.

He is perhaps best known for recognizing the role that values play across the political spectrum and the different ways that values can be “framed” to elicit a positive response.

The program included two panel discussions consisting of faculty members in law, English and linguistics from the University of Pittsburgh as well as Carnegie Mellon University, Wayne State University, the University of Oregon and Vanderbilt University. Professor George H. Taylor, Professor of Law at Pitt; Steven L. Winter, Walter S. Gibbs Professor of Constitutional Law at Wayne State University; and Edward L. Rubin, Dean and John Wade-Kent Syverud Professor of Law at Vanderbilt were among the program panelists.

Pitt Law Magazine is already attracting international honors after just one year in publication. This spring, the Magazine won Gold Awards in the categories of Alumni Magazines and Feature Article Writing in the 21st Annual International Mercury Awards competition, honoring excellence in professional communications. The Magazine also won a Bronze Award in the category of University Magazines. The awards were presented at the 21st Annual International Mercury Awards in New York City.

Pitt Law Magazine was one of nearly 1,000 entries submitted from 23 countries. More than forty distinguished public relations, marketing, and advertising agencies, as well as corporate communications departments and public affairs offices participated in the judging involving more than 100 professionals from Australia, Canada, Europe, Hong Kong, Mexico, and the United States.