mala chatterjee
I'm a joint-JD/PhD in Philosophy candidate at NYU, a fellow at NYU School of Law's Engelberg Center for Innovation Law and Policy, and a visiting fellow at Yale Law School's Information Society Project. I received my JD summa cum laude in 2018, and was a Furman Academic Scholar and Executive Editor of the NYU Law Review. I earned the Maurice Goodman Memorial Prize for outstanding academic achievement and scholarship, the John Bruce Moore Award for highest excellence in Law & Philosophy, and the Bradley Fellowship for scholarly work in Free Speech. I was a Pomeroy Scholar and a Butler Scholar (awarded to the top 10 students after 1L and 2L respectively), and elected to the Order of the Coif. I graduated from Stanford University with a degree in Philosophy and a minor in Symbolic Systems in 2014.
My research interests, both legally and philosophically, concern information. In particular, I explore the philosophical questions - both normative and conceptual in nature - surrounding the legal systems that structure our relationships with and rights in information, broadly construed. This includes intellectual property (copyright, trademark, patent, trade secrets, right ofpublicity); defamation; privacy; technology (applied ethics, bioethics, information privacy, artificial intelligence); freedom of speech; and aesthetics (art, music, expression). I am writing a dissertation on the philosophical foundations of intellectual property under the supervision of Liam Murphy, Jeremy Waldron, and Sam Scheffler. My other work has appeared in the peer-reviewed Journal of Legal Analysis, in the Columbia Law Review, and in the NYU Law Review, and I've presented it at Berkeley, Yale, Columbia, NYU, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Houston.
I've worked as a research assistant for professors Jeanne Fromer, Scott Hemphill, Barton Beebe, and Richard Epstein, particularly focusing on trademark and copyright projects. I also conducted independent research with Chris Sprigman and Liam Murphy while in law school. I was a summer associate at the New York office of the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP in 2017, and at the San Francisco litigation boutique Durie Tangri LLP in 2018. I clerked for the honorable Judge Robert D. Sack on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in the 2019-2020 term, and am the Furman Academic Fellow at NYU School of Law in 2020-2021.
Aside from law & philosophy, I love music (psychedelic or repetitive); film (David Lynch & Paul Thomas Anderson); dancing (techno); art & stories; transcendental meditation; and city life.
My research interests, both legally and philosophically, concern information. In particular, I explore the philosophical questions - both normative and conceptual in nature - surrounding the legal systems that structure our relationships with and rights in information, broadly construed. This includes intellectual property (copyright, trademark, patent, trade secrets, right ofpublicity); defamation; privacy; technology (applied ethics, bioethics, information privacy, artificial intelligence); freedom of speech; and aesthetics (art, music, expression). I am writing a dissertation on the philosophical foundations of intellectual property under the supervision of Liam Murphy, Jeremy Waldron, and Sam Scheffler. My other work has appeared in the peer-reviewed Journal of Legal Analysis, in the Columbia Law Review, and in the NYU Law Review, and I've presented it at Berkeley, Yale, Columbia, NYU, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Houston.
I've worked as a research assistant for professors Jeanne Fromer, Scott Hemphill, Barton Beebe, and Richard Epstein, particularly focusing on trademark and copyright projects. I also conducted independent research with Chris Sprigman and Liam Murphy while in law school. I was a summer associate at the New York office of the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP in 2017, and at the San Francisco litigation boutique Durie Tangri LLP in 2018. I clerked for the honorable Judge Robert D. Sack on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in the 2019-2020 term, and am the Furman Academic Fellow at NYU School of Law in 2020-2021.
Aside from law & philosophy, I love music (psychedelic or repetitive); film (David Lynch & Paul Thomas Anderson); dancing (techno); art & stories; transcendental meditation; and city life.