Staff and Contributors

Current Staff

Jeff Hermes (Director): Jeff is the Director of the Citizen Media Law Project and is a Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. He received his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School in 1997. Prior to joining the Berkman Center, Jeff assisted a wide array of clients in First Amendment, media, intellectual property and Internet law issues as a partner in the litigation practice of Brown Rudnick LLP and later as counsel to Hermes, Netburn, O'Connor & Spearing, P.C. in Boston. Over the last fourteen years, Jeff has represented an international media network and its subsidiaries, major metropolitan newspapers, local broadcasters on television and radio, Internet-based publishers and social media networks. He has written for numerous publications and spoken at a wide array of events on media law issues, including extensive collaboration with the Media Law Resource Center. Jeff received his undergraduate degree, summa cum laude, from Princeton University in 1994. 

Andy Sellars (Staff Attorney):  Andy received his J.D. with high honors from the George Washington University Law School, where he was awarded the Peter D. Rosenberg Award for Patent and Intellectual Property Law. He also received the 2011 Jan Jancin Award for excellence in the study of intellectual property issues.  Andy is no stranger to the Berkman Center, having worked as a summer intern at Berkman's Cyberlaw Clinic advising clients on a wide variety of copyright, media law, and online publication matters.  Prior to law school, Andy worked in the music industry, including for the festival production and promotion company Great Northeast Productions and as assistant tour manager and stage manager for the band moe. He received his undergraduate degree in music, summa cum laude, from Northeastern University in 2008, where he interned at the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts of Massachusetts (now part of the Arts & Business Council of Greater Boston).

Arthur Bright (Research Attorney/Editor): Arthur is a Research Attorney at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society's Citizen Media Law Project and the editor of the CMLP website. Arthur received his J.D. degree from the Boston University School of Law in 2010, and was a CMLP summer intern in 2008. Prior to law school, Arthur was the Online News Editor at The Christian Science Monitor, and he continues to blog for the Monitor on global terrorism and security issues. He also worked for several years as the Network and Systems Administrator for the Boston Architectural Center (now Boston Architectural College) before he became a journalist. He received his Masters degree in Journalism from Boston University's College of Communication in 2005 and undergraduate degrees in Astronomy and Philosophy from Amherst College in 1998.

David Ardia (Co-Founder): David served as the first Director of the Citizen Media Law Project from 2007 to 2011, and is a Faculty Associate of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and an Associate Professor at the UNC School of Law.  David received his J.D. degree, summa cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School. Prior to coming to the Berkman Center, he was assistant counsel at The Washington Post and before that was an associate at Williams & Connolly in Washington, DC, where he handled a range of intellectual property and media litigation. While at Williams & Connolly, David also performed pre-publication libel review for the National Enquirer and In Touch Weekly. David is a former member of the Newspaper Association of America’s Legal Affairs Committee and is a current member of the First Amendment and Media Litigation Committee of the American Bar Association, the Media Law Committee of the District of Columbia Bar, and the New England Media Lawyers Group.

Dan Gillmor (Co-Founder): Dan is the director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University and the founder and director of the Center for Citizen Media. Dan is the author of “We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People.” From 1994 until early 2005, Dan was a columnist at the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper, and wrote a blog for SiliconValley.com. He joined the Mercury News after six years with the Detroit Free Press. Before that, he was with the Kansas City Times and several newspapers in Vermont. During 2005 he co-founded Bayosphere, a San Francisco Bay Area website, which is now part of Backfence.com's collection of hyper-local community sites.

Phil Malone (Co-Founder): Phil is director of the Berkman Center’s Clinical Program in Cyberlaw. Phil came to the Berkman Center after 20 years as a federal prosecutor with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he focused on high-technology industries, the Internet and computer software and hardware. Beginning in 1996 Phil was lead counsel in the DOJ's investigations of Microsoft, and he was the primary career counsel, along with outside counsel David Boies, in the trial of U.S. v. Microsoft Corp.

Past Contributors

We are grateful for the contributions the following individuals have made to the CMLP:

Sharo Atmeh
Julie Babayan
Lee Baker
Sam Bayard
Reed Bienvenu
Jillian Button
Tom Casazzone
Tuna Chatterjee
L.T. Ciaccio
Jason Crow
Alexandra Davies
Jim Ernstmeyer
Vanessa Fazio
Courtney French
Helen Fu
Kelly Hoffman
Marshall Hogan
Kimberley Isbell
Olivia Jennings
Kyle Junik
Dan Kahn
Ryan Kane
Jane Kleiner
Erika Kweon
Frances Katz
Tim Lamoureux
Jason Liss
Matt Lovell
Katie Mapes
Ryan McGrady
Daniel Ostrach
Marc Pennington
Marina Petrova
Rich Quincy
Colin Rhinesmith
Amanda Rice
Caity Ross
David Russcol
Matt C. Sanchez
Alison Schary
Natalie Senst
John Sharkey
Justin Silverman
Brittany Griffin Smith
Aaron Sokoloff
Lina Somait
Konstantinos Stylianou
Tom Sullivan
Yixin Tang
Daniel Ungar
Caitlin Vogus
Miriam Weiler
Stefani Wittenauer

Want to help?

The CMLP is always interested in help from individuals with a legal or journalism background. We offer paid and unpaid internships, as well as volunteer opportunities. Lawyers, journalists, and law students of all levels are especially encouraged to apply.

Applicants should have a demonstrated interest in and enthusiasm for journalism, citizen media or technology-related legal issues, along with excellent research and writing skills and the initiative and energy to see projects to completion in a fast-moving environment.

For more information on how you can get involved, please go here: How to support the CMLP.