CDT is now hiring for the Ron Plesser Fellowship
About the Ron Plesser Fellowship
The law firm of DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary has established a public interest fellowship at the Center for Democracy and Technology ("CDT") in honor of Ron Plesser, a senior partner at the firm who died suddenly in 2004. Ron was a leader in the fields of e-commerce, freedom of information, and privacy law who began his career as a public interest lawyer. Over the course of his legal career, Ron helped frame the still-evolving legal standards for information policy in the digital era. In order to encourage new lawyers to follow in his path, the first fellowship will be awarded in 2006 to a recent law school graduate to practice in the areas of privacy law and Internet policy at CDT for two years under the direction of the organization's senior attorneys.
CDT works to promote democratic values and constitutional liberties in the digital age. With expertise in law, technology, and policy, CDT engages in a variety of strategies to enhance free expression and privacy, including advocacy, public education and research. CDT works on legislation, participates in agency rulemakings, engages in litigation, and fosters consensus building among public interest and private sector stakeholders.
Ron Plesser worked closely with CDT from its founding a decade ago. The fellowship will honor his memory by identifying and nurturing the careers of young lawyers interested in learning the consensus building approach to policymaking that Ron's career exemplified. The Plesser fellow will work on projects offering an opportunity to exercise leadership, and will broadly participate in the organization's legal and public policy activities, in order to provide the fellow with a strong foundation upon which to pursue a public interest legal career in the privacy and Internet policy field.
CDT is proud to announce the selection of the first Plesser Fellow. Sophia Cope is a 2004 graduate of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. For the past two years, Sophia has served as a staff attorney and fellow at the First Amendment Project in Oakland California where she served as counsel to environmental activists seeking to exercise and defend their rights to free expression, petition and access to information. Sophia will join CDT in the fall of 2006.
