Study

In an age where nearly every organization collects and uses data, lawyers must be data-savvy. Modern data challenges ask clients to navigate legal, technical, and mission considerations, often all at once. Machine learning and artificial intelligence add still more questions, even as organizations race to realize data’s potential.

This course focuses on data governance: how organizations and communities make decisions about data, code, and their missions, and the wide-ranging impact of those decisions. Students will learn about three foundational data governance models: how companies protect and manage access to data; how data is shared and reused for research purposes; and how public datasets are assembled and managed. The course will feature simulations and interactive exercises to help students apply these models and skills to real-world scenarios.

At the end of the class, students will gain an understanding of how the law defines and regulates data, and how regulatory frameworks for data differ from field to field. They will also gain foundational knowledge in organizational and multi-stakeholder governance, and how good governance principles might apply to data. Finally, they will gain experience designing and applying governance models for organizations and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

No technical background is necessary to take this class. The first few weeks will include an introduction to data, databases, and governance best practices. 

Syllabus: 475A-01-Fall2025-syllabus.docx50.22 KB

In an age where nearly every organization collects and uses data, lawyers must be data-savvy. Modern data challenges ask clients to navigate legal, technical, and mission considerations, often all at once. Machine learning and artificial intelligence add still more questions, even as organizations race to realize data’s potential.

This course focuses on data governance: how organizations and communities make decisions about data, code, and their missions, and the wide-ranging impact of those decisions. Students will learn about three foundational data governance models: how companies protect and manage access to data; how data is shared and reused for research purposes; and how public datasets are assembled and managed. The course will feature simulations and interactive exercises to help students apply these models and skills to real-world scenarios.

At the end of the class, students will gain an understanding of how the law defines and regulates data, and how regulatory frameworks for data differ from field to field. They will also gain foundational knowledge in organizational and multi-stakeholder governance, and how good governance principles might apply to data. Finally, they will gain experience designing and applying governance models for organizations and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

No technical background is necessary to take this class. The first few weeks will include an introduction to data, databases, and governance best practices. 

In an age where nearly every organization collects and uses data, lawyers must be data-savvy. Modern data challenges ask clients to navigate legal, technical, and mission considerations, often all at once. Machine learning and artificial intelligence add still more questions, even as organizations race to realize data’s potential.

This course focuses on data governance: how organizations and communities make decisions about data, code, and their missions, and the wide-ranging impact of those decisions. Students will learn about three foundational data governance models: how companies protect and manage access to data; how data is shared and reused for research purposes; and how public datasets are assembled and managed. The course will feature simulations and interactive exercises to help students apply these models and skills to real-world scenarios.

At the end of the class, students will gain an understanding of how the law defines and regulates data, and how regulatory frameworks for data differ from field to field. They will also gain foundational knowledge in organizational and multi-stakeholder governance, and how good governance principles might apply to data. Finally, they will gain experience designing and applying governance models for organizations and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

No technical background is necessary to take this class. The first few weeks will include an introduction to data, databases, and governance best practices. 

Syllabus: 475A-01-Fall2023-syllabus.pdf142.2 KB

Focus: Health Data and Learning Health Networks

Data-savvy lawyers and practitioners must be able to work across disciplines, solve modern problems, and steward organizations of all stripes through digital issues. This course focuses on digital governance: how organizations and communities make decisions about data, code, their missions, and their membership, and how those decisions can break down or reinforce systems of structural exclusion.

Here, students will learn how to design, build, and govern effective data communities. They will navigate realistic scenarios and attempt to build equitable collaborations around shared missions and values. And they will use the tools of the law to build policies, procedures, and accountability structures to ensure that stakeholder communities’ data is protected and productive, and that data outputs accrue to the benefit of all.

Health Data and Learning Health Networks

In this simulation class, law and graduate students will attempt to organize and govern a health data collaboration for Long Covid patients. Students will work with each other to role-play as hospital administrators, principal investigators, and patient advocates, and decide whether and how to collaborate and share data with one another. Throughout the semester, students will hear from practitioners building and governing health data collaborations in the field.

Our class will go beyond will go beyond negotiating a data-sharing agreement between multiple parties. Students will need to decide who should be involved in their collaboration, how it should be governed, how it should manage risks, and what policies and procedures should be in place to run the collaboration, keep data safe, and maintain trust among community members.

Focus: Health Data and Learning Health Networks 

Data Governance 

Data-savvy lawyers and practitioners must be able to work across disciplines, solve modern problems, and steward organizations of all stripes through digital issues. This course focuses on digital governance: how organizations and communities make decisions about data, code, their missions, and their membership, and how those decisions can break down or reinforce systems of structural exclusion. 

Here, students will learn how to design, build, and govern effective data communities. They will navigate realistic scenarios and attempt to build equitable collaborations around shared missions and values. And they will use the tools of the law to build policies, procedures, and accountability structures to ensure that stakeholder communities’ data is protected and productive, and that data outputs accrue to the benefit of all. 

Health Data and Learning Health Networks
 
In this simulation class, law and graduate students will attempt to organize and govern a health data collaboration. Students will work with each other and industry mentors to role-play as hospital administrators, principal investigators, and patient advocates, and decide whether and how to collaborate and share data with one another. 

This class will go beyond negotiating a data-sharing agreement between multiple parties. Students will need to decide who should be involved in their collaboration, how it should be governed, how it should manage risks, and what policies and procedures should be in place to run the collaboration, keep data safe, and maintain trust among community members. Finally, using the governance models you’ve designed, students will make decisions about data-sharing and other scenarios. 

In addition to the simulation, the class will include a series of short guest lectures on health data and data governance from leaders in the field.As this set of technologies rapidly emerges, we must consider the extent to which we allow regulation and government intervention, balancing the maintenance of social norms against the need to let a nascent technology innovate. Moving forward, as decentralized networks possibly replace centralized systems, we must find ways to maintain rule of law through appropriate legal and regulatory levers. This course aims to help each of us become active participants in these endeavors.

The tech-savvy lawyer-leader of tomorrow must understand blockchains. Blockchains—decentralized databases that are maintained by a distributed network of computers—present manifold challenges and opportunities, including unprecedented potential to disrupt financial systems, to support civic participation and democratize access to resources, and even to change what we understand “law” to be.

As this set of technologies rapidly emerges, we must consider the extent to which we allow regulation and government intervention, balancing the maintenance of social norms against the need to let a nascent technology innovate. Moving forward, as decentralized networks possibly replace centralized systems, we must find ways to maintain rule of law through appropriate legal and regulatory levers. This course aims to help each of us become active participants in these endeavors.

“In 1993, hardly anybody had heard the word internet.… Yahoo was two years from its founding. Not a soul foresaw Facebook, Match.com, WikiLeaks or cat videos. Mark Zuckerberg was 9 years old. Think of the explosion and disruption that happened over the following decade. Think of how our way of life was completely changed by this internet thing. And so imagine what it means when Don Tapscott, who has been writing books and advising corporations about technology since the ’80s, says the blockchain is the next internet.”

--Kevin Maney, “Trust and Verify: the Coming Blockchain Revolution” NEWSWEEK (May 23, 2016)

The lawyer-leader of tomorrow must understand blockchains. Blockchains, decentralized databases that are maintained by a distributed network of computers, present manifold challenges and opportunities. Blockchains and associated technologies offer unprecedented potential to disrupt financial systems, to support civic participation and democratized access to resources, to change the way we contract with one another, and much more.

As an initial matter, we must consider the extent to which we allow regulation and government intervention, balancing the maintenance of social norms against the need to let a nascent technology innovate. Moving forward, as decentralized networks replace centralized systems, we must find ways to maintain rule of law through appropriate legal and regulatory levers. This course aims to help each of us become active participants in these endeavors by providing an introduction to the salient features—both technical to some degree and social to a large degree—of decentralized computing platforms. It also offers students the chance to apply this knowledge through the development of, and possible advocacy for, a legal or policy proposal related to this topic.

• Collaborative
  The course is structured as a collaboration between Cardozo Law (Professor Aaron Wright) and Duke Law (Professor Jeff Ward), and students from both schools will share experiences (e.g. common speakers) and resources and, where possible, work together to solve real-world, practical issues presented by blockchain deployment. The course is also meant to be collaborative by encouraging students to work with outside professionals to produce the required work product
• Law-focused but interdisciplinary
  Our approach to the complex issues presented by blockchain will be grounded in the law but will also seek to be broad and interdisciplinary, with the goal that each of us will walk out of the course with a better, more nuanced understanding of the complex web of history, culture, technology, psychology, law, and regulation into which blockchain has been placed. As part of this broad and interdisciplinary approach, not only will our readings derive from various sources (law, sociology, economics, history, etc.), but so too will our guest speakers.
• Solution-focused
  By the end of the semester, in addition to the broad overview provided in class, each student will engage in helping to solve a real, specific issue or legal quandary presented by the rise of blockchain technologi