Joshua A.T. Fairfield

Biography

Prof. Fairfield is a nationally recognized scholar on law, governance, economics, and intelligence issues, especially those related to technology. He has written on the law and regulation of e-commerce and online contracts and on the application of standard economic models to virtual environments. He has also written on the ethical and legal issues involved in the growth of human subject experimentation within virtual worlds.

Prof. Fairfield’s current research focuses on privacy models in social media networks. Last year, he was awarded a Fulbright Grant to study privacy law in the U.S. and European contexts at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods in Bonn, Germany.

Prof. Fairfield regularly consults with the U.S. government, including the White House Office of Technology and the Homeland Security Privacy Office, on national security, privacy, and law enforcement within virtual worlds and as well as on strategies for protecting children online. His research in this latter area was cited in a recent report from the Federal Trade Commission examining risks to children who enter virtual worlds.

Before earning his JD magna cum laude from the University of Chicago in 2001, Prof. Fairfield directed the development of the award winning Rosetta Stone Language Library, a leading language teaching software program for educational institutions. After law school, Professor Fairfield clerked for Judge Danny J. Boggs at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He then joined Jones Day in Columbus, Ohio, where he litigated cases in commercial law and software/technology law. Before coming to Washington and Lee, Professor Fairfield taught at Columbia Law School and the Indiana University School of Law in Bloomington.

University of Chicago Law Review; Symposium Editor, University of Chicago Legal Forum; law clerk to Judge Danny J. Boggs, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Louisville, KY, 2000-01; associate, Jones Day, Columbus, OH, 2002-04; Associate-in-Law, Columbia, 2004-05; Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law, Bloomington, 2005-2008; Visiting Professor of Law, Washington and Lee University, 2007-08; Associate Professor of Law, 2008-.