Paul M. Schwartz

Paul Schwartz is the Jefferson E. Peyser Professor at UC Berkeley School of Law and a Director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology. His scholarship focuses on how the law has sought to regulate and shape information technology, as well as the impact of information technology on law and democracy. He has also examined a broad range of issues including European Union privacy regulations, cloud computing, governmental data mining, federal preemption of privacy laws, and the different legal definitions of “personal information.”

Professor Schwartz is a leading international expert on information privacy, cybersecurity, copyright, telecommunications and information law. His many articles and essays have appeared in leading law journals such as the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, and N.Y.U. Law Review. Fluent in German, he also contributes to German legal reviews. He is the author of many books including the distilled guide Privacy Law Fundamentals (2013) and the leading casebook Information Privacy Law (2011), each with Daniel Solove. He is a frequent speaker at technology conferences and corporate events in the United States and abroad, and has been quoted by media outlets including Forbes, New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.

Professor Schwartz has testified before Congress and served as an advisor to the Commission of the European Union and other international organizations. He assists numerous corporations and international organizations with regulatory, policy, and governance issues relating to information privacy. He is also a Special Advisor at Paul Hastings, where he works in the Privacy and Data Security Practice. He is a member of the organizing committees of the Privacy Law Salon and of the American Law Institute, and is an organizer of the Privacy + Security Forum.

Prior to joining the UC Berkeley faculty in 2006, Professor Schwartz taught at Brooklyn Law School and the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville. During 2002-2003, he was in residence as a Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin and as a Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Brussels. He has also received a Humboldt Scholar Grant, a Harry Frank Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Fulbright Fellowship.