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Course Planning and Faculty

Upon admission to the program, students will be assigned a full-time intellectual property and communications law faculty member as their faculty advisor. Faculty advisors will assist students in identifying and refining their study objectives. Before enrolling in the LL.M./M.J. program, students must consult with their faculty advisors to complete a course plan. Full-time students are strongly advised not to change their course plans once the plans have been established because not all courses listed in the LL.M./M.J. curriculum will be offered every semester. Students may consult with the program director regarding future course offerings by the LL.M./M.J. program.

Intellectual Property & Communications Law Faculty at MSU Law
The Intellectual Property & Communications Law Program at MSU College of Law consists of several prolific scholars who have wide expertise in the field of intellectual property and communications law and two foremost experts in sports and international trade law. This prestigious group is joined by faculty members teaching in related areas, visiting faculty members, faculty associates from other MSU colleges and the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law and experienced attorneys practicing on the front lines of the legal profession.

Intellectual Property and Communications Law Faculty

D. Adam Candeub
Associate Professor of Law
B.A. magna cum laude 1990, Yale University
J.D. magna cum laude, Order of the Coif 1995, University of Pennsylvania Law School

Professor Candeub brings to the intellectual property and communications law faculty his expertise in communications, administrative and antitrust law and an extensive economics background. He also is a Fellow with MSU’s Institute for Public Utilities. He published and has forthcoming articles in the Alabama Law Review, Syracuse Law Review, the Federal Communications Law Journal, and Communications Lawyer. Prior to joining the law faculty, Professor Candeub was an attorney-advisor in the Media and Common Carrier Bureaus in the Federal Communications Commission, where he was involved in critical decisions in communications. He was also a litigation associate with the Washington, D.C. office of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue and a corporate associate with the Washington, D.C. office of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. Professor Candeub clerked for Chief Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and served as an articles editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. At the Law College he teaches Communications Law and Regulated Industries.

Adam Mossoff
Assistant Professor of Law
B.A. with High Honors 1993, University of Michigan
M.A. 1998, Columbia University
J.D. with Honors 2001, University of Chicago Law School

Professor Mossoff is an expert in patent law and property theory. He writes on a wide range of issues, including legal philosophy, patent law and property law, and his publications have appeared in the Arizona Law Review, Hastings Law Journal,Berkeley Technology Law Journal, and the University of Chicago Law School Roundtable . He was a visiting lecturer and John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Northwestern University School of Law, where he taught a seminar on property theory. Professor Mossoff clerked for the Hon. Jacques L. Wiener, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. At the Law College he teaches Patent Law, Trade Secrets, Property, Decedents’ Estates and Trusts, and Jurisprudence.

Kevin W. Saunders
Professor of Law
A.B. 1968, Franklin and Marshall College
M.S. 1970, M.A. 1976, Ph.D. 1978, University of Miami
J.D. magna cum laude 1984, University of Michigan Law School

Professor Saunders is an expert in First Amendment and media law. After a distinguished career as a mathematics educator, Professor Saunders turned his attention to the law. He taught at the University of Arkansas and the University of Oklahoma. During his 16-year tenure at Oklahoma, he was the recipient of four awards, including the 2001 Regents’ Award for Superior Accomplishment in Research and Creative Activity. He also served on the graduate faculty and the faculties of the College of Liberal Studies and the Film and Video Studies Program. Most recently, he served as the Visiting James Madison Chair and Interim Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Drake University. Professor Saunders is the author of Violence as Obscenity: Limiting the Media’s First Amendment Protection (Duke University Press) and Saving Our Children from the First Amendment (NYU Press). He has authored dozens of book chapters, law review articles, and commentaries in legal and popular periodicals and has testified before Congress on media law and policy issues. Professor Saunders clerked for the Hon. Kenneth Starr of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. At the Law College he teaches a variety of courses and seminars on topics in Constitutional Law, including the First Amendment and freedom of expression.

Sports and International Trade Law Faculty

Robert A. McCormick
B.A. cum laude 1969, Michigan State University
J.D. 1973, University of Michigan

Professor McCormick is a foremost expert in sports, antitrust and labor law. He is the co-author of a textbook on sports law and a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators. His writings have appeared in the Emory Law Journal, the Vanderbilt Law Review, and the Washington and Lee Law Review. Professor McCormick currently serves as the co-counsel in Clarett v. National Football League, in which the Ohio State University college football player Maurice Clarett challenged the NFL over his eligibility to play professional football. Professor McCormick was interviewed repeatedly in the Emmy-award winning ESPN television show, “Outside the Lines,” and his commentaries have appeared in The New York Times, the Detroit Free Press, The Detroit News, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Associated Press, the Arizona Republic, Fox Sports Net, and CBS Radio. Professor McCormick is a co-producer of a video documentary on “Toil, Trouble, and Triumph: The Legacy of Michigan Labor Lawyers.” From 1973 to 1978, he served as an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and as counsel to the Hon. Howard Jenkins, Jr., member of the NLRB, in Washington, D.C. He was assistant director of gift and estate planning for the University of Chicago. Professor McCormick joined the Law College faculty in 1979 and served as associate dean from 1986 to 1989. At the Law College he teaches Sports Law, Comparative Labor Law, Decedents’ Estates and Trusts, Discrimination in Employment, and Labor Law.

Kevin C. Kennedy
B.A. with distinction 1973, University of Michigan
J.D. magna cum laude 1977, Wayne State University
LL.M. 1982, Harvard Law School

Professor Kennedy is a leading expert in international trade law. He is the author of Competition Law and the World Trade Organization (Sweet & Maxwell) and the co-author of the treatise World Trade Law (Lexis). He has written more than 40 law review articles, mostly in the area of international trade law. Most recently, he organized a conference on “The First Decade of NAFTA: The Future of Free Trade in North America.” Professor Kennedy was a visiting professor at the Marshall-Whythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary. He serves as the executive secretary of the Michigan Law Revision Commission and as a NAFTA Chapter 19 dispute settlement panelist. He was a law clerk at the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York and a trial attorney for the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. At the Law College he teaches International Litigation and Arbitration, International Trade Regulation, International Trade Remedies, and Conflict of Laws.

Faculty Associates

• Johannes M. Bauer is professor of telecommunication, information studies & media and executive director of the James H. and Mary B. Quello Center for Telecommunications Management & Law in the College of Communication Arts & Sciences at Michigan State University.
• Janice A. Beecher is the director of the Institute of Public Utilities and an adjunct professor in the Political Science Department at Michigan State University.
• Jane Briggs-Bunting is the director of the School of Journalism at Michigan State University and a 2003 inductee into the prestigious Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame.
• Richard J. Enbody is associate professor of computer science and engineering at Michigan State University.
• Frederic H. Erbisch is a consultant in intellectual property management and an adjunct professor at the Institute of International Agriculture at Michigan State University.
• Michael A. Geist is Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law and the 2005 Trilateral Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at Michigan State University College of Law.
• Daniel J. Gervais is Oslers Professor of Technology Law at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law and the 2004 Trilateral Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at Michigan State University College of Law.
• Karim M. Maredia is Professor and Technology Transfer Coordinator at the Institute of International Agriculture and the department of entomology in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Michigan State University.
• Charles Steinfield is professor of telecommunication, information studies & media at Michigan State University.
• Steven S. Wildman is James H. Quello Chair of Telecommunication Studies and director of the James H. and Mary B. Quello Center for Telecommunication Management & Law in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University.

Visiting and Adjunct Faculty

• Nancy Costello is a clinical professor in the Research, Writing & Advocacy Program at Michigan State University College of Law. She teaches Copyright Law, Intellectual Property Law in the Internet Age, and Research, Writing, Advocacy I—from an Intellectual Property Law Perspective.
• Llewellyn J. Gibbons is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Toledo College of Law and Visiting Professor of Law at Michigan State University College of Law in fall 2004. He teaches E-commerce and Licensing Intellectual Property.
• Monte L. Falcoff is a principal with Harness, Dickey & Pierce, PLC. He teaches Advanced Intellectual Property Law, Advanced Patent Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Patent Litigation.
• Thomas J. Lynch is an intellectual property attorney at Electronic Data Systems Corporation. He teaches Licensing Intellectual Property and International Intellectual Property Law.
• Harold W. Milton, Jr. is a member of Howard & Howard Attorneys, P.C. He teaches Patent Application Preparation.
• Thomas T. Moga is a member of Dickinson Wright PLLC. He teaches Intellectual Property Practice and Policy in the Pacific Rim.
• S. Gary Spicer advises and counsels corporate executives, professional athletes, sports broadcasters and entertainers in their business and legal matters. He teaches Entertainment Law and Sports Law.
• David L. Suter is a principal with Harness, Dickey & Pierce, PLC. He teaches Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Patents. (awaiting approval by FAC)
• Margaret Vroman is an assistant city attorney with the City of Lansing and the Chief Appellate Counsel and Legal Advisor to the General Services Committee and the Telecommunications Board. She teaches Cyberlaw.