What I do best -- what I love to do -- is mix my understanding of technology and the law with an ability to write.

Education

Boalt Hall School of Law (UC Berkeley)
Class of 2001
Activities:
Berkeley Technology Law Journal Articles Editor, Webmaster for boalt.org, BTLJ, and La Raza Students Association
Honors: Earned Law and Technology Certificate from the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology

The University of Texas at Austin
Bachelor of English, fall 1995-May 1998
Minor: Mexican-American Studies
Major GPA: 3.73
Honors: Graduated with Special Honors in English; completed Honors Thesis; recognized for "Exemplary Scholarly Achievement" UT Honors Day spring 1997; recognized for participation in Tejas Magazine at UT Journalism Department Honors Day 1998

The University of Texas at Brownsville Undergraduate work, summer 1993-spring 1995
Major: English
GPA: 3.66
Honors: Dean's List fall 1993; President's List fall 1994, spring 1995

Work Experience

Warner Bos. Technical Operations Inc., Burbank, Ca.
Senior Counsel -- Summer 2009 to present
Senior counsel for WBTO, advising the studio on IT and InfoSec matters. Drafted and negotiated: cloud, hybrid cloud and CDN service agreements; data center-related agreements, including co-location, hosting, managed services, bandwidth purchase, cable management and data center migration; Infrastructure, Platform and Software as a Service agreements; software license, maintenance and support agreements; software development agreements including mobile apps; content encoding; IT-related outsourcing, managed services and consulting agreements; hardware purchase and maintenance contracts; and InfoSec-related agreements for: penetration testing, vulnerability scans, managed firewall services, logging, intrusion detection, network taps, PCI and security compliance audits, security incident forensics and source code security analysis. Technical expert in the negotiation and drafting of customized Service Level Agreements. IT due diligence in mergers and acquisitions.

Representative Matters: Maintain studio’s standard security terms and conditions for online services; studio counsel for security due diligence and the evaluation of security controls for third-party online services; studio counsel for: Warner Archive Instant streaming service platform; WB Digital Archive, WB Data Warehouse platform and software, WBshop.com ecommerce platform, studio email fulfillment platform; and Flixster IT and data center agreements.

Prepared curriculum for (1) legal process presentation to educate junior business personnel on working with in-house legal and contracting in general; (2) "Basics of Dealmaking" presentation for business leads and junior executives concerning negotiating strategy, common pitfalls and do's and don'ts of dealmaking; and (3) presentation on the legal aspects of open source software.

Sheppard Mullin, Los Angeles, Ca.
Associate/Attorney -- Spring 2007 to Spring 2009
Member of Entertainment, Media and Technology and Video Game Practice Groups. Drafted and negotiated: content, co-branding, trademark, copyright, trade secret and patent license agreements; Internet advertising agreements; End-User License Agreements; software development, distribution and resale agreements; website terms of use and privacy policies; Information Technology and business outsourcing deals; and Application Service Provider, web hosting and data center-related agreements. Advised clients on: Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Communications Decency Act safe harbors; brand management, trademark clearance and prosecution; IP ownership and prosecution; and IP due diligence in mergers and acquisitions.

Christensen Miller, Los Angeles, Ca.
Associate/Attorney -- fall 2003 to present
Founding member and senior associate for the Intellectual Property Practice Group. Responsible for, supervised or was involved with almost every IP-related litigation or transactional matter from late 2003 to June 2007 including copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret and domain name litigation. Transactional experience included: copyright, trademark, patent and software licenses and assignments; IP-related due diligence in mergers and acquisitions; IP-related real estate and employment transactions; website compliance audits; and trademark and trade secret protection policies. Engaged in trademark prosecution.

Broadened experience to include probate litigation, general commercial litigation, and AAA arbitrations

Perkins Coie, San Francisco, Ca.
Associate/Attorney -- fall 2001 to fall 2003
Advised clients on law and technology issues, including litigation, intellectual property, domain name law, privacy issues, telecom law, P3P, and spam. Clients include newspapers, P2P software companies, website operators, email service providers, and telecom industry players.

Wired News, San Francisco, Ca.
Reporter -- summer 1999, fall 2000
Reported on the latest law and technology issues in a fast-paced environment. See my tech coverage links page for a complete list of my Wired News coverage.

The Press-Enterprise, Riverside, Ca.
Police Reporter -- summer 1998
Covered more than 20 law enforcement and emergency services agencies in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. Produced in-depth stories on technology in education and long distance rates.

TeleNetwork, Inc., Austin, Tx.
ISP Support Technician -- 1996 to 1997
Provided telephone Internet technical support to more than eight different Internet Service Providers, ISPs, helping users of all experience levels get online with fully configured systems and basic orientation. Answered other in-bound calls. Studied the ISP industry internally.

The Daily Texan, Austin, Tx.
General Assignment Reporter -- fall 1995
Reported on issues related to the University of Texas, including minority recruitment, technology, and the environment.

The Brownsville Herald, Brownsville, Tx.
General Assignment Reporter -- 1993 to 1995
Covered the city and education beats. Reported on various aspects of the telecommunications industry, including long-distance carrier scams targeting Hispanics and the linking of 16 public libraries in the Lower Rio Grande Valley through the Internet.