The LawTech Center at UVA Law School focuses on pressing questions in law and technology, including policy concerns, data analysis of legal texts, and the use of technology in the legal profession.
Serving as a locus of faculty research, the center is led by Danielle K. Citron, a leading voice on issues of law and technology, and Elizabeth A. Rowe, an expert on intellectual property and trade secrets. The author of the books “Hate Crimes in Cyberspace” and the forthcoming “The Fight for Privacy: Protecting Dignity, Identity and Law in the Digital Age,” Citron has been deeply involved in reform efforts relating to the regulation of online platforms. Rowe, who is co-author of the first and leading U.S. casebook on trade secrets in addition to a “Nutshell” treatise on trade secrets, has written on the intersection of trade secrets with employment law and technology, as well as the interplay between intellectual property, government policy and innovation.
The Law School’s curriculum also benefits from the school’s proximity to the Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, which offers several courses connected to cybersecurity and national security. Virginia’s programs and centers in national security, health law and intellectual property also add to the depth of the course offerings and extracurricular opportunities.
Policy and Regulation
Technology’s impact on everyday lives has raised new areas of concern in law, from the legal responsibilities of online platforms in protecting consumer privacy and data, to managing cybersecurity threats, to the interplay between intellectual property, government policy and innovation. Faculty members are addressing the question of platform governance and regulation from different directions, including moral philosophy and discrimination, privacy and cyber civil rights, criminal justice and antitrust. Their work has common themes — to what extent should powerful intermediaries be subject to regulation? What should regulation look like? What sort of transparency and accountability is feasible and desirable given trade secret protections? Do we need a federal agency devoted to algorithmic governance?
The Data of Legal Texts
Several affiliated faculty members are focused on using computational tools, including artificial intelligence and natural language processing, to reveal insights on laws and how lawyers, jurists and the public interact with them. Other scholars use empirical methods to consider possibilities for criminal justice reform, analyze constitutions around the world and generally look at the law through a different lens.
Technology in the Legal Profession
Technology is also affecting how law is practiced, how judges and juries are making decisions, and how policies get made. The Law School offers courses that teach students about the evolution of legal practice, and professors are researching the impact of what that means for both lawyers and the public.
Professor Danielle Citron, director of the LawTech Center, discusses law and technology and the school’s course offerings. This session was part of UVA Law’s 2023 Admitted Students Open House.
This Essay expounds on the outsized role of private law in governing ownership of new technologies and data. As scholars lament gaps between law and...
Fifty years ago, federal and state lawmakers called for the regulation of a criminal justice “databank” connecting federal, state, and local agencies...
This chapter provides an overview of computational text analysis techniques used to study judicial behavior and decision-making. As legal texts become...
Working hand-in-hand with the private sector, largely in a regulatory vacuum, policing agencies at the federal, state, and local level are acquiring...
This Essay expounds on the outsized role of private law in governing ownership of new technologies and data. As scholars lament gaps between law and...
Fifty years ago, federal and state lawmakers called for the regulation of a criminal justice “databank” connecting federal, state, and local agencies...
This chapter provides an overview of computational text analysis techniques used to study judicial behavior and decision-making. As legal texts become...
Working hand-in-hand with the private sector, largely in a regulatory vacuum, policing agencies at the federal, state, and local level are acquiring...
We live in a golden age of student surveillance. Some surveillance is old school: video cameras, school resource officers, and tip lines. Old-school...
A resilience agenda is an essential part of protecting national security in a digital age. Digital technologies impact nearly all aspects of everyday...
This article argues that the fact that an action will compound a prior injustice counts as a reason against doing the action. I call this reason The...
This chapter examines several ways that the United States takes advantage of international law’s permissiveness and ambiguity to extend its criminal...
Income tax law and policy are fundamentally intertwined with private markets—causal effects run in both directions. The vitality of public markets can...
Now that the Supreme Court has revoked the constitutional right to reproductive autonomy, we must reckon with the risks that our surveillance economy...
The requirement of harm has significantly impeded the enforcement of privacy law. In most tort and contract cases, plaintiffs must establish that they...
Artificial intelligence tools (“AI”) have great potential to improve government functions and efficiency. These algorithmic tools, protected by trade...
A number of technological and political forces have transformed the once staid and insider dominated notice-and-comment process into a forum for large...
Some who should know argue, and I find plausible, that among these aspects of AI, accumulation and organization of data sets is the most significant...
The following is a list of courses offered during 2022-25. Numbers in parentheses indicate which academic year(s) the courses were offered, i.e., 2022-23 is coded (23), 2023-24 is coded (24) and 2024-25 is coded (25). (SC) stands for short course and (YR) stands for yearlong.
AI and IP (25) Antitrust in the Digital Economy (SC) (24) Artificial Intelligence and Democracy (25) Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (25) Biotechnology and the Law (25) Computer Crime Law (24,25) Cryptocurrency Law and Policy (SC) (23,24) Cybersecurity and Privacy Boot Camp (SC) (25) Cybersecurity Law and Policy (23,24) Drug Product Liability Litigation: Principles and Practice (23,24,25) Emerging AI Legal Issues (SC) (25) Emerging Growth Companies and Venture Capital Financing: Principles and Practice (25) Food and Drug Law (24) Genetics and the Law (SC) (24,25) Genetics and the Law: Exercises in Rule-Making (SC) (23) Innovating for Defense (23,24) Internet Law (23) Law and Artificial Intelligence (23,25) Law and Ethics of Biotechnology (23) Law and Technology Colloquium (23,24) Law of Artificial Intelligence (SC) (24) LawTech (23,25) Legal Practice and the Startup Company: An Inside Look (SC) (23,24,25) National Security Law (23,24) Patent Law (23,24,25) Privacy (23,24,25) Privacy Law and Theory Seminar (23,24,25) Repugnant Transactions (23,24,25) Science and the Courts (SC) (23,24,25) Survey of Patent, Copyright, Trademark (23,24) Taboo Trades (23,24,25) Trade Secret Law (23,24,25) Transactional Intellectual Property Law (25)
University of Virginia School of Law professor Danielle Citron and Jeff Stautberg ’25 penned a research paper delving into the recent Murthy v. Missouri litigation, which is affecting information-sharing between social media companies and the government.
Kashmir Hill discusses her 2023 book, “Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup’s Quest to End Privacy as We Know It," with UVA Law professor Danielle Citron during a LawTech Center talk, following an introduction by Professor Elizabeth Rowe. The book explores how facial recognition technology threatens privacy.
LIST focuses on the novel legal, policy and business problems caused by the recent proliferation of emerging technologies. It educates students about issues in the area; prepares them with practical skills and experience to enter the legal workforce; connects them to a network of mentors, experts and resources; and collaborates with the policy, business and technology communities. Recent areas of focus have included cyber crime, net neutrality and autonomous vehicles, among others. Website
National Security Law Forum
National Security Law Forum connects UVA law students with national security law and broader government issues by hosting speakers, educating students about career opportunities and facilitating student work on national security problems during law school. The forum seeks to produce the next generation of national security law leaders by engaging the school’s faculty, alumni network and connections with the national security community.
Virginia Journal of Law & Technology
UVA Law's only e-journal, VJoLT, provides a forum for students, professors and practitioners to discuss emerging issues at the intersection of law and technology. Recent issues of the journal have included articles on biotechnology, telecommunications, e-commerce, internet privacy and encryption. Website
First-year University of Virginia School of Law student Lauren Grohowski discusses her inventions and how her father’s experience as a lawyer fueled her interest going into law.
University of Washington law professor Xuan-Thao Nguyen discussed her new book, “Silicon Valley Bank: The Rise and Fall of a Community Bank for Tech,” with UVA Law professor Elizabeth A. Rowe. Nguyen’s book provides a first-hand account of the founding, ascent and dissolution of Silicon Valley Bank, a tech community bank founded in 1982 with $5 million that became the nation’s 13th-largest bank and the tech industry’s lender and bank.
In a new paper, University of Virginia School of Law professor Elizabeth Rowe argues public law has left gaps in data regulation that private law has filled, ceding ground to corporations when government should play a role.
University of Virginia School of Law professor Danielle Citron and Jeff Stautberg ’25 penned a research paper delving into the recent Murthy v. Missouri litigation, which is affecting information-sharing between social media companies and the government.
Five alumni of the University of Virginia School of Law were named among Law360’s Rising Stars of 2024 for their accomplishments as attorneys in the past year.
New courses offered this fall at the University of Virginia School of Law include Artificial Intelligence and Democracy, International Settlement of Disputes, and Single People and the Law.
Actress Scarlett Johansson recently accused OpenAI of stealing her voice. Professor Dotan Oliar of the University of Virginia School of Law examines the controversy, the legal questions at stake and how artificial intelligence is changing intellectual property law.
A team of students from the University of Virginia School of Law won awards in this year’s International and European Tax Moot Court competition, among other achievements and recognition for members of the Law School community.
Professor Thomas Nachbar of the University of Virginia School of Law offers insights on the possible implications of the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Apple.
First-year University of Virginia School of Law student Lauren Grohowski discusses her inventions and how her father’s experience as a lawyer fueled her interest going into law.
Four alumni — Maggie Birkel ’19, Billy Easley ’13, Kristina Yost ’08 and Peter Bowden ’98 — discuss the paths their careers have taken 5, 10, 15 and 25 years after graduating from the University of Virginia School of Law.
Professor and privacy expert Danielle K. Citron of the University of Virginia School of Law calls for reforming the “permanent surveillance state” imposed on American public school students.
Members of the University of Virginia School of Law community have recently been singled out for excellence. Among the accolades, Professor Frederick Schauer has won the 2023 Scribes Book Award for “The Proof.”
University of Virginia School of Law professor Danielle Citron, an expert in privacy law who has advanced the idea of intimate privacy as a civil right, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Antonella Nicholas, a third-year student at the University of Virginia School of Law, recently presented a paper she co-authored with Professor Andrew Block analyzing rural inequities in her home state.
Facial recognition technology is so powerful and rife with the potential to be misused that stronger consumer protections for biometric data are essential, says Professor Elizabeth A. Rowe on the season finale of “Common Law,” a podcast of the University of Virginia School of Law.
Second-year student Sean Onwualu, a former Syracuse football player and sports agency extern, discusses his most interesting classes and meeting Justice Stephen Breyer at the University of Virginia School of Law.
One year into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, three international law and national security experts at the University of Virginia School of Law assess the impact and legacy of the war.
Members of the University of Virginia School of Law community have recently been singled out for excellence. Among the accolades, Dean Risa Goluboff has been named to the Equal Justice Works board of directors.
A symposium at the University of Virginia School of Law will examine how current international strife can predict a future conflict between China and Taiwan.
University of Virginia School of Law professor Ashley Deeks discusses the legal and ethical concerns with San Francisco voting to allow its police department to use robots to kill suspected criminals.
Facial recognition technology is so powerful and rife with the potential to be misused that stronger consumer protections for biometric data are essential, says Professor Elizabeth A. Rowe on the season finale of “Common Law,” a podcast of the University of Virginia School of Law.
Professors Danielle Citron; Hany Farid of the University of California, Berkeley; and Mary Anne Franks of the University of Miami School of Law discuss the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative’s work in the 10 years since its founding. The event was sponsored by the school’s LawTech Center, which Citron directs.
Professor Danielle Citron discusses themes in her most recent book, “The Fight for Privacy: Protecting Dignity, Identity, and Love in the Digital Age.” Citron spoke at the Law School Foundation’s Alumni Board and Council luncheon.
