Professor Silbey’s scholarship engages in a cultural analysis of law. One of her interests is in the interdiscipline of law and film, exploring how film is used as a legal tool and how it becomes an object of legal analysis in light of its history as a cultural object and art form. How does automated surveillance film become testimony in a court of law? How do cultural perceptions about film affect its evaluation by jurors, advocates and judges? How might legal actors and lay citizens mobilize the audiovisual technology of our twenty-first century to further the promises of our justice system?

Professor Silbey is also currently working on book about intellectual property law (to be published by Stanford University Press), investigating common and conflicting narratives within legal institutions and private organizations that explain and dispute intellectual property protection in the United States. She is especially interested in the connections between cultural narratives of creation, discovery, incentive and labor and their legal counterparts in cases, statutes and litigation. The empirical dimension of this project (conducting and analyzing interviews with intellectual property professionals) is on-going and the book is due to be completed in late 2012. Professor Silbey teaches courses in constitutional law, trademarks and copyrights.

Professor Silbey received her B.A. from Stanford University and her J.D. and Ph.D. (Comparative Literature) from the University of Michigan. Before joining the faculty of Suffolk University Law School, Professor Silbey litigated at the law firm of Foley Hoag LLP in Boston. She also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Robert E. Keeton on the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts and to the Honorable Levin Campbell on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

Professor Silbey was promoted to Professor of Law in 2011.

Prof. Jessica Silbey
Suffolk University Law School
120 Tremont Street , Suite 210-D
Boston, MA 02108-4977

t. (617) 617-305-6270
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