John Palfrey

“The Connected Parent,” a new book by John Palfrey ’01 and Urs Gasser LL.M. ’03  is a practical guide for addressing concerns brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and navigating an increasingly digital world.

New works on redeeming the administrative state, navigating parenting in a world in which children are immersed in technology, and understanding the importance of understanding how much information you need.

It was 1999 and the dot-com bubble was about to burst. Corporations were scrambling to address new legal challenges online. Napster was testing the music industry. And at Harvard Law School, the Berkman Klein Center was creating a clinical teaching program specializing in cyberlaw.

The Harvard Gazette recently spoke with John Palfrey '01, former professor and vice dean for Library and Information Resources at HLS, and former executive director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society about how his Harvard time prepared him for his new role to lead one of the country’s largest philanthropic organizations.

For the first time, Harvard Law School and the MIT Media Lab have collaborated to host an innovative January-term course, “Internet & Society: The Technologies and Politics of Control,” dedicated to understanding the legal and technical dynamics of the digital world.

Earlier this year Urs Gasser, professor of practice and executive director of the Berkman Klein Center, and John Palfrey, Center director and former HLS professor published 'Born Digital: How Children Grow Up in a Digital Age,' an expansion of their critically acclaimed 2008 book 'Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives.'

Internet Monitor dashboard, a freely available tool that helps identify trends in Internet activity through data visualization, has been launched by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

On June 22 at Harvard Law School, John Palfrey '01, director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, spoke about his new book, "BiblioTech: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever In An Age of Google." Palfrey, who previously served as vice dean for Libraries and Information Resources at Harvard Law School, made the case that libraries are more relevant than ever in

The highly connected nature of today’s world has all sorts of benefits—but all sorts of potential costs as well, from loss of control of private data to a world financial system so intertwined that when one part of it falls, it’s hard to keep other parts from toppling along with it. In “Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems,” John Palfrey ’01 and Urs Gasser LL.M. ’03 draw on their work at the HLS Berkman Center for Internet & Society to start developing a “normative theory identifying what we want out of all this connectivity.”

Based on a workshop taught at Harvard Law School for the first time last spring by Professor Jonathan Zittrain ’95 and John Palfrey ’01, Information Law and Policy: Advanced Problem Solving Workshop (taught this fall by Visiting Professor Susan Crawford) presents students with several case studies and asks them to complete team exercises, which include conducting negotiations, writing legal briefs, and drafting policies and legislation.

Harvard Law School Professor John Palfrey ’01 and Urs Gasser LL.M. '03, lecturer on law and executive director of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, launched their latest book, Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems, at a May 30 event hosted by the Berkman Center, the Harvard Law School Library and the Harvard Book Store.

In a recent paper published in the December issue of Science magazine, Harvard Law School Professors Jonathan Zittrain ‘95 and John Palfrey ’01 examine how better forms of measurement of the Internet and the Web can inform Internet policy and regulations.

How can technology help people gain better and easier access to the judicial system? Are there new technologies—or more efficient ways of using existing ones—that can assist low-income, pro se and other litigants to navigate the legal system while easing the burden on underresourced courts?

According to John Palfrey, businesspeople are often insufficiently attentive to the ways that intellectual property rights can be acquired and exercised. His new book, “Intellectual Property Strategy” (MIT Press), is thus written with businesspeople in mind. Palfrey, Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources and Faculty Co-Director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, argues for leaders of businesses and non-profit organizations to adopt IP policies that go beyond the traditional, highly restrictive “sword and shield” approach, and that instead focus on flexibility and creativity.

John G. Palfrey ’01, Harvard Law School’s Henry N. Ess III Professor of Law and vice-dean of Library and Information Resources, has been appointed the 15th Head of School at the Phillips Academy Andover, the academy announced Nov. 14. He will leave HLS and officially begin at Phillips Academy in July 2012.

Professor John Palfrey ’01 was a keynote speaker at the Open World Forum, held September 22-24, in Paris, France. The Open World Forum brings together 160 experts from around the world to discuss technological, economic and social initiatives.

In celebration of Constitution Day—the annual celebration of the signing of the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787—HLS professors Noah Feldman and John Palfrey delivered talks to university audiences about the document upon which the American legal and political systems have been built.