Post date: February 28, 2001 — 10:15 a.m.
Harvard Law School Assistant Professor Jonathan Zittrain has been named the Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies.
Zittrain, a noted expert in the emerging field of cyberlaw, joined the Harvard Law School faculty as a lecturer in 1997 while serving as the first executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, a leading research center on Internet trends, technology, and the law. He was named Assistant Professor of Law in July 2000, and remains a faculty co-director of the Berkman Center.
“Jonathan Zittrain is one of the world’s foremost Internet and technology scholars,” said Dean Robert C. Clark. “This is an area of study in which our students are increasingly interested. The Harvard community will benefit immeasurably by having such a talented scholar hold the Berkman Professorship.”
Zittrain’s scholarship has focused on issues ranging from digital property, privacy, and speech to the role played by private “middlepeople” in Internet architecture. He also has a strong interest in creative, useful, and unobtrusive ways to deploy technology in the classroom. In the fall, Zittrain taught Internet and Society: The Technologies and Politics of Control.
A 1995 graduate of Harvard Law School, Zittrain also holds degrees from Yale University and Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. After receiving his J.D., Zittrain served as a law clerk for Judge Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit.
The Berkman Professorship is named in honor of the late Jack Berkman, Harvard Law School Class of 1929, and his wife Lillian.
Jack Berkman was a pioneer and highly successful entrepreneur in the communications industry. He served as chairman of The Associated Group, Inc., and its predecessor, Associated Communications Corporation. Together with his son, Myles P. Berkman, Harvard Law School Class of 1961, and his two grandsons, Jack Berkman transformed his vision of communications into a wide-ranging corporate portfolio of radio and television broadcasting stations, paging networks, and cable television systems.
Jack Berkman was also an active philanthropist, serving on many nonprofit boards. He joined the Harvard Committee on University Resources in 1988, and was a member of the national councils of the Metropolitan Opera and Rockefeller University. He was also a director of the Retina Foundation and an advisory board member of the Skin Cancer Foundation. In addition to his Harvard Law studies, Mr. Berkman completed his undergraduate work at the University of Michigan in 1926.
Lillian Berkman, who received a B.A. and M.A. summa cum laude from New York University, is a Vice President of The Associated Group, Inc. and is a distinguished art collector. She is active on many corporate and nonprofit boards. Mrs. Berkman joined the Harvard Law School Visiting Committee in 1996 and is a charter member of the Dean’s Advisory Board. She has been a Fellow in Perpetuity of the Metropolitan Museum of Art since 1964. She serves on the board of the Sterling National Bank of New York, and has served on numerous other corporate boards including Allied Stores and Michigan National Corporation. She is President of the General Alarm Corporation and of the Rojtman Foundation. Mrs. Berkman has served as cultural advisor to Coca-Cola and the government of Costa Rica. The University of the Philippines awarded her an honorary Doctorate in the Humanities in 1976, and Marquette University awarded her an honorary D.F.A. in 1996.