Experiential Learning
Georgetown Law students are not only familiar with contemporary policy debates; they also learn how to code, have written legislative proposals, and submitted briefs to the Federal Circuit, FCC, and FTC.
Georgetown Law now has three clinics doing applied work in technology law and policy, plus an exciting array of practicum courses and externships.
Clinics
IPR Communications & Technology Clinic
Students spend a semester working full-time on cases involving communications policy and law, addressing issues such as access to affordable broadband service, protecting children from unfair and deceptive web advertising, or compliance with children’s privacy rules.
Intellectual Property & Information Policy Clinic.
Launched in Spring 2020, the Clinic focuses on strategic counseling for individuals, non-profit organizations, and consumer groups engaged with intellectual property and information policy matters from a public interest perspective.
Practicums & Externships
- Computer Programming for Lawyers. In two classes designed to give law students a strong working knowledge of technological tools, Prof. Paul Ohm teaches students to code in Python and understand the Linux command line. The class is designed for students with no prior coding experience. Experienced coders may take an intermediate class that focuses on specific client problems.
- Iron Tech Lawyer competition. An international competition for student-created tech solutions that help bridge the justice gap! Student teams from around the world showcase legal tech and data analysis tools they have developed to help improve access to justice.
- National Security Crisis Simulation. Students simulate the work of the National Security Council during a mock national security crisis supervised by Prof. Laura Donohue and a team of volunteer practitioners.
- Students work in externships at public interest organizations, technology companies, law firms and in federal courts.
Access the full list of tech law and policy classes offered at Georgetown Law.
In January 2024, Academic Program Director Mary Pat Dwyer taught an experiential "Week One" course for first-year law students entitled "Regulating Online Speech in the Age of Social Media." The intensive, four-day course, which took place just before the start of the Spring 2024 semester, explored tech platforms' influence on the moderation of online speech and the degree to which government can communicate with tech companies about speech online without engaging in unconstitutional censorship.