Paolo Cerina ’93, a partner in Brosio, Casati/Allen & Overy, one of Europe’s premier firms, says, “Working in technology requires a strong IP background.” A 1989 graduate of the University of Milan’s law school, Mr. Cerina represents both Italian and international technology companies. He came to Columbia, on a scholarship from his alma mater, after several years practicing in an Italian law firm and teaching law. “I had studied private international law and wanted to focus my law practice on international relationships—either for Italian companies going abroad or foreign companies in Italy,” Mr. Cerina says. “There are few foreign law firms in Italy, so the best chance for an ambitious young lawyer to get the necessary experience is to get an LL.M. from a top university like Columbia.”
Mr. Cerina says his interest in intellectual property came as a surprise. He took Professor Jane C. Ginsburg’s course in international intellectual property and “really loved it because both the subject matter and the debates and discussions in class were very different from [those in] Italy.” When choosing a thesis topic, he selected international private-law aspects of copyright law, because “no one in Italy was writing on that at the time.” His paper addressed the originality requirement for the protection of databases in Europe and the United States; it was published in an important German IP law review. Professor Ginsburg gave him “a new way of looking at issues,” says Mr. Cerina. “She has been one of my best teachers ever.”
Mr. Cerina’s work has covered IP law from a variety of angles. “In 1996, I was doing a lot of telecommunications work,” he says. “Then I did a lot of Internet work, and now I’m doing a bit of software, hardware, and media. So things change with the economy.” He adds, “Having been at Columbia was tremendously helpful in terms of understanding another culture and really opened my way of thinking. It has helped me to deal with foreign clients and has helped my Italian clients to work abroad.”
Raquel Xalabarder ’93 was midway through a doctorate in law at the University of Barcelona when she joined Columbia’s LL.M. program to enhance her graduate work, which focused on legal aspects of the film industry. “I was always attracted to copyright law even though there is very little education on it in Spain,” she says. Ms. Xalabarder had also wanted to study law in a common law, versus a civil law, system, saying, “I knew the teaching method would be quite different, and I wanted to experience it.”
Now a professor of copyright law at Barcelona’s Unversitat Oberta de Catalunya, an Internet-based university (which she calls “somewhat of an experiment”), Ms. Xalabarder took all of the intellectual property courses she could while at Columbia, including copyright and trademark, entertainment law, seminars on law and the arts and law and the film industry, as well as foundation courses, such as contracts and torts. “When you’re teaching law, it’s always good to understand the alternate ways of thinking of the law. In Spain, professors lecture and students swallow it whole. There’s no questioning or raising of issues,” she says. “Little by little, I am trying to introduce another way of teaching.”
She adds that university professors are getting more excited about learning and teaching IP. “Five or ten years ago, there were no law firms or departments of firms devoted to copyright issues. Now there are. The Internet has sped up the process, but it is not the origin of it. Spain passed a new copyright law in 1997, which revived the discussion of it and created the potential for making money from protecting artistic work. People are now more aware of what it takes to create and why art needs to be protected.”
Xalabarder returned to Columbia as a visiting scholar during the 2000-2001 academic year to conduct a project on copyright and online education. “It was great being part of the academic life at Columbia,” she says. “From a European perspective, it’s very rich and worthwhile.”
