UC Davis Law to Introduce Center for Innovation, Law, and Society in Spring 2023

  • by Carla Meyer
Graphic for Center for Innovation, Law, and Society

Building upon its rich history of scholarship and teaching at the intersection of law, innovation, and technology, UC Davis Law will launch a Center for Innovation, Law, and Society in spring 2023.

Professor Peter Lee, an expert in intellectual property law, proposed the center’s creation and will serve as its inaugural director. The center will kick off its activities with a spring speaker series. The CILS will be the fourth specialized UC Davis Law center, joining the Aoki Center for Critical Race and Nation Studies, the California Environmental Law and Policy Center, and the California International Law Center.

“We have a great cohort of faculty working in law and innovation, construed broadly,” Lee said, noting that UC Davis Law offers more than 30 classes that meaningfully address legal aspects of innovation and technology.

“I work in IP, but the center certainly goes beyond IP,” Lee said. “We have people doing fantastic work in bioethics, data privacy, environmental law” and other areas – from antitrust to reproductive rights – informed by legal issues related to innovation and technology. “It was a very conscious choice to not call it a ‘law and technology’ center but to use the broader concept of ‘innovation.’”

Student interest was another key factor in starting the center.

“Our students are really energized about these issues,” Lee said. “A lot of people come to King Hall because they want to work in law and technology or law and innovation, and we want to provide more programming for their benefit.” He noted that the King Hall Intellectual Property Law Association “has had a robust presence for years,” and that the Health Law Association also explores topics in the new center’s purview.

UC Davis’ proximity to Silicon Valley and to Sacramento, an emerging area for startups, gives the new center a natural advantage in drawing speakers. Lee aims to tap the large pool of King Hall alumni working in innovation-related fields to speak at center events.

Other goals include supporting conferences and workshops for law and innovation scholars to present their work; promoting scholarship by King Hall faculty members addressing law and innovation; facilitating interdisciplinary exchange with other campus units and throughout the UC system; and conducting outreach to prospective students and helping identify externship opportunities for current students.