This summer, two legal superstars will join Santa Clara Law’s respected faculty: Edward Lee, professor and director of the IP program at Chicago-Kent College of Law; and Zahr K. Said, the Charles I. Stone Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law.
“At Santa Clara Law, we recognize that our stellar faculty team is at the heart of the top-notch legal education we offer. I am thrilled that Edward Lee and Zahr K. Said will be joining our community this summer,” says Santa Clara Law Dean Michael J. Kaufman. “Enthusiastically chosen by our appointments committee after a rigorous recruitment and interview process, these two new members of our Santa Clara Law family are superstars in every way—renowned scholars, beloved teachers, dedicated public servants, and wonderful human beings. I look forward to seeing the many ways they will enhance our student experience and enliven our law school community.”
Associate dean for research and law professor, Eric Goldman, echoed the Dean’s sentiments. “Ed and Zahr are exceptional professors and revered colleagues,” says Goldman, who co-directs Santa Clara Law’s High Tech Law Institute and supervises the Privacy Law Certificate. “Together, they greatly enhance Santa Clara Law’s position as a leader in technology law. On a personal note, I have known and respected Ed and Zahr for many years, and I’m excited and honored to be their colleague.”
Edward Lee will join Santa Clara Law from Chicago-Kent College of Law, where he is professor and director of the IP law program. Lee’s research focuses on the ways in which the Internet, technological development, and globalization challenge existing legal paradigms. A prolific scholar, Lee is the author of numerous articles as well as the book, Creators Take Control: How NFTs Revolutionize Art, Business, and Entertainment (Harper Business, 2023), which Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig called “essential reading for our creative future,” by “one of the Internet’s most careful and experienced scholars.” He is also co-author of a leading casebook with Daniel Chow, International Intellectual Property: Problems, Cases, and Materials (West Group, 2006). In addition, Lee is the founder and managing director of The Free Internet Project, a nonprofit that aims to track efforts to protect Internet freedoms around the world.
“Ed will add to the great foundation we have at Santa Clara Law in international IP law, which intersects well with our High Tech Law Institute and our Center for Global Law and Policy,” says Laura Lee Norris JD ’97, associate dean for academic affairs at Santa Clara Law. “We are also excited to bring his expertise in artificial intelligence and intellectual property law to Santa Clara Law at a time when these issues are so front of mind.”
Previously, Lee was a professor at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, and he has served as a legal writing instructor at Stanford Law School and an attorney at Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society. From 1996-99, he was a litigation associate in the Washington, D.C., office of Mayer, Brown & Platt. Lee earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School, cum laude, where he was an editor and co-chair of the books and commentaries office of the Harvard Law Review. He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy (with highest honors) and classics from Williams College in 1992, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude.
“I’m ecstatic to join the outstanding faculty of Santa Clara Law, a remarkable institution known for its deep commitment to social justice and diversity, as well as its top-ranked high tech and IP program,” says Lee. “I count my blessings to return to the Bay Area, where I started my legal career, and join such a vibrant institution and phenomenal faculty in the heart of Silicon Valley. To do so at a time of epochal technological innovation is an opportunity of a lifetime.”
Zahr K. Said is the Charles I. Stone Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law, where her areas of expertise include art law, copyright law, music law, social media/digital media law, torts, and trademark law. Previously, she has taught at the University of Virginia School of Law and at Stanford Law School.
Said’s scholarship has appeared in edited volumes on intellectual property and law and the humanities published by Edward Elgar, Frontier Publishing, Cornell University Press, and Oxford University Press. In addition, she has published articles in numerous journals including the Indiana Law Journal, Lewis and Clark Law Review, the Iowa Law Review, Cardozo Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, Stanford Technology Law Review, and Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts. Said is also the author of Tort Law: A 21st-Century Approach, a free, interactive, open-source casebook—now in its second edition—that centers on tort law on issues of race, gender, class, and ability. She is an affiliate of the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington.
“Zahr is clearly not only a decorated scholar but also a dedicated teacher with a demonstrated commitment to mentoring law students,” says Laura Lee Norris JD ’97, associate dean for academic affairs at Santa Clara Law. “Zahr’s teaching interests will resonate well with our student body—she teaches and develops new courses at the intersection of intellectual property and other disciplines such as advertising and marketing, disinformation, and art law.”
Said earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Harvard University; a J.D. from Columbia, where she was a Kent Scholar and served as articles editor for the Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts; and a B.A. in comparative literature from U.C. Berkeley, magna cum laude. She is the recipient of the 2015 University of Washington Law Faculty Scholarship Award, the 2016 Philip A. Trautman 1L Professor of the Year Award (2016), and a grant from the University of Washington Global Innovation Fund.
“I’m thrilled to be joining Santa Clara, a school I’ve long admired for its excellence in intellectual property and its dedication to advancing social justice,” says Said. “I already know I love Santa Clara’s IP faculty, and I can’t wait to build and deepen connections with the rest of the community. There’s a feeling of energy and unity on campus at Santa Clara Law, and I’m truly honored to become a part of that. Also, I’m excited to be returning to the Bay Area, my favorite place in the world!”
