University of Illinois College of Law

About

Barbara J. Kaplan joined the law library faculty as a Teaching Assistant Professor and Faculty Outreach Librarian in June 2020.  She holds an A.B. magna cum laude in Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations from Harvard University and a J.D. from the New York University School of Law, where she was an Articles & Note Editor on the Journal of International Law & Politics.  Trained as a litigator, she was an litigation and intellectual property associate at Bryan Cave’s New York office and an intellectual property attorney at Isicoff & Ragatz in Miami before going in-house as IP counsel at a Fortune 500 company, enforcing the company’s IPR rights worldwide with a focus on global anti-counterfeiting programs and actions for most of her 20 years in practice.  During that time, she was also a presenter and panelist for many CLE programs relating to her areas of specialization.

After receiving her M.S.L.S. from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, Professor Kaplan returned to academia as the Research & Scholarly Communications Librarian at the Florida State University College of Law, where she taught an advanced legal research course focusing on business law, guest-lectured on in-house research skills and practice, document drafting, and other topics to law students as well as on copyright issues relating to choreography and live dance performance at FSU’s School of Dance. She has been a presenter at the annual meeting of the Florida Library Association on privacy issues confronting Florida public libraries, and on client-outside counsel relations the Tallahassee Bar Association’s Annual CLE Conference.

Professor Kaplan is admitted to practice in New York, Florida, and California, and to a number of federal district courts.

Education

JD New York University School of Law
MSLS University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
AB Harvard University

Areas of Expertise

Legal Research
Trademarks and Unfair Competition
Copyright
Patents