Lawrence Lessig: A Short Biography
Lawrence Lessig is the Director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University, and a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
Prior to returning to Harvard, Lessig was a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School (where he was founder of Stanford's Center for Internet and Society), Harvard Law School (1997-2000), and the University of Chicago Law School. Lessig clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.
His current academic work addresses the question of "institutional corruption" — roughly, influences within an economy of influence that weaken the effectiveness of an institution, or weaken public trust. His current work at the EJ Safra Lab oversees a 5 year research project addressing institutional corruption in a number of institutional contexts.
Lessig has won numerous awards, including the Free Software Foundation's Freedom Award, and was named one of Scientific American's Top 50 Visionaries. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.
Lessig serves on the boards of Creative Commons, MAPLight, Brave New Film Foundation, Change Congress, The American Academy, Berlin, Freedom House and iCommons.org. He is on the advisory board of the Sunlight Foundation. He has previously served on the boards of the Free Software Foundation, the Software Freedom Law Center, Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Public Library of Science, Free Press, and Public Knowledge. Lessig was also a columnist for Wired, Red Herring, and the Industry Standard.
Lessig earned a BA in economics and a BS in management from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in philosophy from Cambridge, and a JD from Yale. He has received honorary degrees from The University of Amsterdam, Athabasca University, and The Georgian-American University.
