Law 792:  Cybersecurity and the Legal System

This seminar explores the legal system’s response to the rapidly evolving challenges posed by cybercrime. Our goal is for you to gain basic literacy about practical cybersecurity issues likely to touch nearly every lawyer, and key legal and public policy issues concerning cybercrime, cybersecurity, and privacy.

We will examine how courts and legislators are trying to adapt traditional legal rules to digital misconduct, the role (and limitations) of law enforcement, tensions between security and privacy in the fight against cybercrime, the legal and practical implications of the internationalization of cybercrime and the growing role of state actors, and the role of government regulation in promoting cybersecurity. Our goal is to provide you with basic literacy about cybersecurity issues likely to touch nearly every lawyer’s practice. We’ll also explore common types of cybercrime and security measures, lawyers’ ethical obligations concerning cybersecurity, and the role of lawyers in helping clients meet their cybersecurity-related legal responsibilities and responding to cybersecurity incidents. One class session will be devoted to an incident response exercise similar to those used by many organizations to prepare for real cybersecurity events.

Sequence and Prerequisites: None

Evaluation: Grades will be based on class participation (20%) and a final examination (80%), which will be a take-home exam distributed at the beginning and due at the end of the finals period.