Why change the name of the Computer Law Association after 35 years?
Computer Law Association was a really cool name 35 years ago. I don’t think there’s a lawyer today in this field who says (he/she) practices computer law. The only thing we probably call computers is the thing sitting on our desks. So the nature of the practice is more than just a computer and the word “technology” represents that. It’s a wider definition. The big change for us is that 35 years ago we were mainly a U.S. organization; not so today. Our members are half from the United States and half from the rest of the world. So the word international was crucial. Have sweeping legal changes such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act created a spike in membership? No, because I think our lawyers were practicing that long before the law was codified. Remember, especially here in the United States, the law is slow. So our people were dealing with issues of data protection and privacy long before HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) ever showed up on the scene. Par
