Neil Richards

Neil Richards is the Koch Distinguished Professor in Law at Washington University School of Law, where he co-directs the Cordell Institute for Policy in Medicine & Law. He is an internationally-recognized expert in privacy law, information law, and freedom of expression. He writes, teaches, and lectures about the regulation of the technologies powered by human information that are revolutionizing our society.

Professor Richards upcoming book, Why Privacy Matters, will be published by Oxford University Press later in 2021. He has also written Intellectual Privacy: Rethinking Civil Liberties in the Digital Age (Oxford University Press, 2015). His many writings on privacy and civil liberties have appeared in a wide variety of journals including the Harvard Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, Yale Law Journal to The Guardian, WIRED, and Slate. He regularly speaks on privacy and civil liberties throughout the United States and Europe, and also appears frequently in the media.

Professor Richards is an Affiliate Scholar with the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School and the Yale Information Society Project, a Fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology, and a consultant and expert in privacy cases. He serves on the board of the Future of Privacy Forum and is a member of the American Law Institute. He is a past winner of the Washington University School of Law’s Professor of the Year award. Prior to joining the Washington University in St. Louis law faculty in 2003, he practiced law in Washington, D.C. with Wilmer, Cutler, and Pickering, where he specialized in appellate litigation and privacy law. Professor Richards served as a law clerk to both William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States, and Paul V. Niemeyer, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.