Michael Rustad

Biography

Michael L. Rustad is the Thomas F. Lambert Jr. Professor of Law and Co-Director of Suffolk University Law School's nationally ranked Intellectual Property Concentration. He is a member of the American Law Institute and served on the ABA Business Law Section's Subcommittee on Information Licensing.

Education

• BA, University of North Dakota
• MA, University of Maryland
• PhD, Boston College
• JD, Suffolk University
• LLM, Harvard University

Publications

• Michael L. Rustad, Why A New Deal Must Address the Unreadability of U.S. Consumer Contracts, Cardozo L. Rev. (forthcoming in 2022).
• Michael Rustad and Thomas Koenig. The Case for a Section 230 Notice-and-Takedown Duty,” 23 NEV. L.J. (forthcoming in 2022).
• Michael Rustad and Thomas Koenig, Creating a Public Health Disinformation Exception to CDA Section 230, 71 SYRACUSE L. REV. 1251 (2021).
• Michael L. Rustad, Marshall Shapo’s Sociological Torts Jurisprudence, forthcoming in Nw. U. L. Rev. (Winter 2021)
• Michael Rustad and Thomas Koenig, Deterring Viral Pandemics of COVID-19 Misinformation, Nw. U. L. Rev. Online (April 26, 2020)
• Towards a Global Data Privacy Standard, 71 FLA. L. REV. (2019) (with Thomas H. Koenig).
• A Commercial Law for Software Contracting, 76 WASH. & LEE L. REV. (2019) (with Elif Kavusturan).
• Reconceptualizing the Right To Be Forgotten To Enable Transatlantic Data Flow, 28 HARV. J.L. & TECH. 349 (2015).
• Fundamentally Unfair: An Empirical Analysis of Social Media Arbitration Clauses, 65 CASE W. L. REV. 341 (2015) (with Thomas Koenig).
• Digital Scarlett Letters: Social Media Stigmatization of the Poor & What Can Be Done, 93 NEB. L. REV. 592 (2015) (with Thomas Koenig).
• Wolves of the World Wide Web: Reforming Social Networks’ Contracting Practices, 49 WAKE FOREST L. REV.1431 (2014) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
• The Myth of A Value-Free Injury Law: Constitutive Injury Law as a Cultural Battleground, 107 NW. U. L. REV. 1359 (2013) (Book Review Essay of Marshall Shapo's An Injury Constitution, Oxford University Press 2012)
• Twenty-First Century Tort Theories: The Internalist/Externalist Debate, 88 INDIANA L.J. 419 (2013) (Fall 2012, Special Symposium Issue on Civil Recourse & Twenty-First Century Tort Theories with Posner, Calabresi, Goldberg, Zipursky, Chamallas and Robinette)
• Two Worlds of Quickwrap Collide: U.S. v. Europe, 35 COMPARATIVE LAW YEARBOOK FOR INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS 225 (2013) (with Thomas Koenig)
• Restorative Justice to Supplement Deterrence-Based Punishment: An Empirical Study and Theoretical Reconceptualization of the EPA's Power Plant Enforcement Initiative, 2000-2011, 65 OKLA. L. REV. 427 (2013)
• Reconceptualizing Consumer Terms of Use for A Globalized Knowledge Economy, 14 U. PA. J. BUS. L. 1085 (2012) (with Vittoria Onufrio)
• Reconceptualizing the BP Oil Spill as Parens Patriae Products Liability, 49 HOUS. L. REV. 291 (2012) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
• An Empirical Study of Predispute Mandatory Arbitration Clauses in Social Media Terms of Service Agreements, 34 U. ARK. LITTLE ROCK L. REV. 643 (2012) (Symposium Issue on ADR in Cyberspace (with Richard Buckingham, Diane D'Angelo and Katherine Durlacher))
• How Armenian Cybertorts Can Advance Civil Society, MAIN ISSUES OF PEDAGOGY & PSYCHOLOGY 2 (2011)
• On Software Licensing: For Licensees and Licensors, 31 J. LICENSING 1 (2011)
• Reforming Public Interest Tort Law to Redress public Health Epidemics, 14 J. HEALTH CARE L. & POL'Y 331 (2011) (with Thomas Koenig)
• Parens Patriae Litigation to Redress Societal Damages from the BP Oil Spill: The Latest Stage in the Evolution of Crimtorts, 29 UCLA J. ENVTL. L. & POL'Y 45 (2011) (with Thomas Koenig)
• The Exportability of the Principles of Software Contracts: Lost in Translation?, 2 HASTINGS SCI. & TECH. L.J. 25 (2011) (with Maria Vittoria Onufrio)
• Deciding Whether the Death Penalty Should Be Abolished, 44 SUFFOLK U. L. REV. 193 (2011) (with Thomas H. Koenig) (book review)
• Intellectual Property and Human Rights: A Paradox (book review), 21 LAW & POL. BOOK REV. 128 (2011)
• Torts as Public Wrongs, 38 PEPP. L. REV. 433 (2011) (Symposium: Does the World Still Need United States Tort Law? Or Did it Ever?)
• The Uncert-Worthiness of the Court’s Unmaking of Punitive Damages, 2 CHARLESTON L. REV. 459 (2008) (Symposium Issue on Punitive Damages)
• The Supreme Court and Me: Trapped in Time with Punitive Damages, 17 WIDENER L. REV. 783 (2008) (Symposium Issue on Crimtorts) (Concept I coined in my Harvard LL.M. Thesis and developed with Thomas H. Koenig)
• A Hard Day’s Night: Hierarchy, History and Happiness in Legal Education, 58 SYRACUSE L. REV. 261 (2008) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
• Extending Learned Hand's Negligence Formula to Information Security Breaches, 3 I/S: J.L. & POL'Y FOR INFO. SOC'Y 237 (2007) (with Thomas H. Koenig) (Ohio State University & Carnegie Mellon University peer-reviewed publication)
• Circles of E-Consumer Trust: Old E-America v. New E-Europe, 16 MICH. ST. J. INT'L L. 183 (2007) (Symposium Issue: "Electronic Commerce: Challenges to Privacy, Integrity, and Security in a Borderless World")
• 'Hate Torts' to Fight Hate Crimes: Punishing the Organizational Roots of Evil, 51 AM. BEHAV. SCI. 302 (2007) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
• Stephanie Mencimer's Blocking the Courthouse Door: How the Republican Party and Its Corporate Allies Are Taking Away Your Right to Sue, 43-May TRIAL 77 (2007) (April) (book review)
• Negligent Entrustment Liability for Outsourced Data, 10 :10 J. INTERNET L. 3 (2007) (with Thomas H. Koenig) (To be reprinted in N. Sudarshan (ed.) DATA PRIVACY - HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES, ICFAI University Press 2008)
• Neglecting the Neglected: The Impact of Noneconomic Damage Caps on Meritorious Nursing Home Lawsuits, 14 ELDER L. J. 331 (2006)
• H. Ward Classen's A Practical Guide to Software Licensing for Licensees and Licensors: Analyses and Model Forms, 26 LICENSING J. 24 (June/July 2006) (Review Essay on ABA Software Licensing for Licensee and Licensors) (book review)
• Harmonizing Internet Law: Lessons from Europe, 9 :11 J. INTERNET L. 3 (2006) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
• Review Essay: Software Licensing, 26 LICENSING J. 17 (2006)
• The Negligent Enablement of Trade Secret Misappropriation, 22 SANTA CLARA COMPUTER & HIGH TECH. L.J. 455 (2006)
• Review Essay: Competing Visions of Angst Among Elite Lawyers, 2006 U. ILL. L. REV. 475 (2006) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
• William M. Sage and Rogan Kersh, eds., Medical Malpractice and the U.S. Health Care System, (2006) (book review)
• Reforming the Economic Espionage Act: An Empirical Study, 22 SANTA CLARA COMPUTER & HIGH TECH. L. J. 745 (2006)
• Safe Harbour, Experimental Use, Inherency, Obviousness and Utility, 6 J. HIGH TECH. L. 1 (2006) (with Andrew Beckerman-Rodau)
• The Tort of Negligent Enablement of Cybercrime, 20 BERKELEY TECH. L.J. 1553 (2005) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
• Keith E. Maskus and Jerome H. Reichman, eds., International Public Goods and Transfer of Technology: Under a Globalized Intellectual Property Regime, 15 :10 L. & POL. BOOK REV. 920-924 (2005) (book review)
• Iwan Davies, ed., Issues in International Commercial Law, 15 :9 L. & POL. BOOK REV. 847-849 (2005) (book review)
• The Closing of Punitive Damages' Iron Cage, 38 LOY. L.A.L. REV. 1297 (2005)
• Foreword to Thomas E. Lambert Jr., Tort Law Conference Symposium Issue, Sophisticated New Tort Theories, 5 J. HIGH TECH. L. 1 (2005)
• Happy No More: Federalism Derailed by the Court That Would be King of Punitive Damages, 64 MD. L. REV. 461 (2005)
• Rebooting Cybertort Law, 80 WASH. L. REV. 335 (2005) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
• Alan Calnan, ed., A Revisionist History of Tort Law: From Holmesian Realism to Neoclassical Rationalism, 15 :5 L. & POL. BOOK REV. 350-353 (2005) (book review)
• Heart of Stone: What is Revealed About the Attitude of Compassionate Conservatives Towards Nursing Home Practices, Tort Reform, and Noneconomic Damages, 35 N. M. L. REV. 337 (2005)
• Harmonizing Cybertort Law for Europe and America, 5 J. HIGH TECH. L. 13 (2005) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
• Why Mexico? Why Mexican Law? Why Now?, 24 PENN. ST. INT'L. L. REV. 373 (2005) (with Jim Smith and Katherine Pearson)
• Monitoring Employee E-Mail and Internet Usage: Avoiding the Omniscient Electronic Sweatshop: Insights from Europe, 7 U. PA. J. LAB. & EMP. L. 829 (2005) (with Sandra Paulsson)
• Torts in Cyberspace: A New Audit, 4 J. HIGH TECH. L. (2005) (Symposium Issue: Thomas F. Lambert Tort Law Conference, Sophisticated New Tort Theories)
• The Closing of Punitive Damages’ Iron Cage, 38 LOY. L.A. L. REV. (2005) (Symposium Issue: “Access to Justice: Can Business Coexist With the Civil Justice System?”)
• Jay Feinman's Unmaking Law, 40-Oct. TRIAL 74 (2004) (book review)
• Toxic Torts, Politics and Environmental Justice: The Case for Crimtorts, 26 L. & POL'Y 189 (2004) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
• Punitive Damages in Medical Malpractice: A New Audit, 4 LNC RESOURCES: WHERE LITIGATION & HEALTH CARE COME TOGETHER 1 (2004) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
• Cybertorts and Legal Lag: An Empirical Analysis, 13 S. CAL. INTERDISC. L.J. 77 (2004) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
• Punitive Damages in Cyberspace: Where in the World is the Consumer, 7 CHAP. L. REV. 39 (2004)
• Taming the Tort Monster: Ideology and Utopia in the American Civil Justice System, 68 BROOKLYN L. REV. 1 (2002) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
• Private Enforcement of Cybercrime on the Electronic Frontier, 11 S. CAL. INTERDISC. L.J. 63 (2001)
• Smoke Signals from Private Attorneys General in Mega Social Policy Cases, 51 DEPAUL L. REV. 511 (2001) (Robert Clifford Symposium on Tort Law)
• UCITA’s Commercial Law for Cyberspace, 1 CYBERSPACE & L.: INTERNET & LEGAL PRAC. 267 (2000)
• Making UCITA More Consumer-Friendly, 18 J. MARSHALL J. COMPUTER & INFO. L. 547 (1999) (Symposium Issue)
• Unraveling Punitive Damages: Current Data and Further Inquiry, 1998 WISC. L. REV. 15 (1998) (Symposium Issue)
• Crimtorts as Corporate Just Deserts, 31 U. MICH. J.L. REFORM 289 (1998) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
• The Assault on Workplace Safety, 30 SUFFOLK U. L. REV. 1017 (1998)
• Punitive Damage Cases in Breast Implant Producers Litigation: A Research Report, 1 J. MASS. ACAD. TRIAL ATTYS. 30 (1998)
• How the Common Good Is Served by the Remedy of Punitive Damages, 64 TENN. L. REV. 793 (1997)
• Commercial Law Infrastructure for the Age of Information, 16 J. MARSHALL J. COMPUTER & INFO. L. 255 (1997) (Symposium Issue)
• Legal Resources for Lawyers Lost in Cyberspace, 30 SUFFOLK U.L. REV. 317 (1996)
• Nationalizing Tort Law: The Republican Attack on Women, Blue Collar Workers and Consumers, 48 RUTGERS L. REV. 673 (1996)
• Women Gender Bias and Tort Reform, 2 J. MASS. ACAD. TRIAL ATTYS (1995) (with Thomas Koenig)
  
• An Empirical Analysis of Software Licensing & Practices (Pt. 2), 10 COMPUTER L. ASSN. BULL. 56 (1995) (with Elaine Martel & Scott McAullife)
  
• His and Her Tort Reform: Gender Injustice in Disguise, 70 WASH L. REV. 1 (1995) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
• Reconceptualizing Punitive Damages in Medical Malpractice: Targeting Amoral Corporations, Not 'Moral Monsters', 47 RUTGERS L. REV. 975 (1995) (with Thomas Koenig)
  
• The Commercial Law of Internet Security, 10 HIGH TECH L. J. 213 (1995)
  
• Taking WLF to Task on Social Science Data in Court, ____ LEGAL TIMES 29 (1994)
  
• The Jurisprudence of Hope: Preserving Humanism in Tort Law, 28 SUFFOLK U. L. REV. 1099 (1994)
  
• An Empirical Analysis of Software Licenses & Practices (Pt. 1), 10 COMPUTER L. ASSN. BULL. 6 (1994) (with Elaine Martel & Scott McAullife)
  
• Advocacy, Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics, 136 NEW JERSEY L. J. 1313 (1994) (with Thomas Koenig)
  
• The Myth of the Punitive Damages Explosion: A Response to Martin Connor, 21 Prod. Safety & Liab. Rep. 736 (1993) (with Robert Granfield & Thomas Koenig)
  
• How Experts View the Significance of TXO Ruling: Punitive Damage Doctrine Likely to Remain Intact, 16 Prod. Liab. & Strategy 255 (1993) (with Thomas Koenig)
  
• The Historical Continuity of Punitive Damages Awards: Reforming the Tort Reformers, 42 AM. U.L. REV. 1269 (1993) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
  
• The Quiet Revolution Revisited: An Empirical Examination of State Tort Reforms of Punitive Damages, 16 JUST. SYS. J. 21 (1993) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
  
• The Supreme Court and Junk Social Science: Selective Distortion in Amicus Briefs, 72 N.C.L. REV. 91 (1993) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
  
• Punitive Damages Crisis in Products Liability?, 22 THE ADVOCATE 30 (1992) (with Thomas Koenig & Robert Granfield)
  
• Life After Law, 22 THE ADVOCATE 30 (1992) (with Gerard Clark & Thomas Koenig)
  
• In Defense of Punitive Damages in Products Liability: Testing Tort Anecdotes with Empirical Data, 78 IOWA L. REV. 1 (1992)
  
• Punitives Under Control; but Tort Reform Boosters See Bias in Study Findings, 78 ABA J. 38 (1992) (with Don J. DeBenedictis)
  
• Karl Llewellyn's Arm-Chair Realism, 25 SUFFOLK L. REV. 135 (1991)
  
• The Impact of History on Contemporary Prestige Images of Boston's Law Schools, 24 SUFFOLK L. REV. 621 (1990)
  
• Punitive Damages in Products Liability: A Research Report, 3 PROD. LIAB. L. J. 85 (1990) (with Thomas Koenig)
  
• An Empirical study of a Prestige Image in Transition: Suffolk Law Graduates in Large New England Law Firms, 21 THE ADVOCATE 9 (1990) (with Thomas Koenig)
  
• The Law of Comparative Advertising: An Overview of Recent Developments, ABA/ALI COMPUTER CONTRACTS AND CURRENT ISSUES: 7TH ANNUAL NEW ENGLAND COMPUTER LAW CONFERENCE (1987) (with Thomas Hemnes)
  
• Turning Carthorses into Trotters: Suffolk Evening Law School as a Counter-Hegemonic Movement in Legal Education, 17 THE ADVOCATE 18 (1986)

• Taming the Tort Monster: The American Civil Justice System as a Battleground of Social Theory, in TORT LAW: CASES, PERSPECTIVES AND PROBLEMS (Thomas C. Galligan, et al ed., 2013) (eBook) (with Thomas Koenig)
• The Exportability of Principles of Software Contracts: Lost in Translation?, in INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS: CONTRACTING ACROSS BORDERS (11th ed., Ralph H. Folsom, et al ed., 2012) (with Vittoria Onufrio)
• Negligent Entrustment for Outsourced Data, in DATA PRIVACY AND PROTECTION: ISSUES AND PERSPECTIVES (N. Sudarshan ed., 2009) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
• The Tort of Negligent Enablement of Cyberspace, in TORTIOUS LIABILITY (B. Padmashree Rajeshwarrao ed., 2009) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
• Crimtorts as Corporate Just Deserts, in COMPLEX LITIGATION: CASES AND MATERIALS ON NON-LITIGATING FOR SOCIAL CHANGE (Kevin R. Johnson and Catherine A. Rogers eds., 2009) (with Thomas H. Koenig)
• Introduction, in LEGAL ISSUES IN THE GLOBAL INFORMATION SOCIETY (Dennis Campbell and Chrysta Ban eds., 2005)
• Towards the Further Legalization of Global Information Law, in LEGAL ISSUES IN THE GLOBAL INFORMATION AGE (Center for International Studies, 2005) (with Stephen C. Hicks)
• Selection from In Defense of Tort Law , in CANADIAN TORT LAW: CASES, NOTES AND MATERIALS (2004)
• Business Torts and Fraud, in MAGILL’S LEGAL GUIDE (1999)
• Crime and Punishment: In Defense of Punitive Damages, in A PRODUCT LIABILITY ANTHOLOGY (Anita Bernstein ed., 1998)
• Commercial Litigation, in MAGILL’S LEGAL ENCYCLOPEDIA (1998)
• Harmonizing Commercial Transactions in Information, Protection and Use of Intellectual Property in Changing Global Economy, in PROCEEDINGS OF THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ADVOCATES (1997) (Madrid, Spain)
• Punitive Damages in Producers Liability--Plaintiff's View, in PRODUCTS LIALBILITY PRACTICE GUIDE (1993)
• Discrimination Makes Women Soldiers Ineffective, in WOMEN IN THE MILITARY: CURRENT CONTROVERSIES (Carol Wekesser and Matthew Polesetsky eds., 1991)
• The Challenge to Hierarchy in Legal Education: Suffolk and the Night Law School Movement, in RESEARCH IN LAW, DEVIANCE AND SOCIAL CONTROL (1985) (with Thomas Koenig)

Media

• Mandatory Arbitration Agreements in Social Media Sites , 05/30/12. (iTunes)
• AALS Presentation on Torts Theory, 06/01/12. (AALS)
• Shake'em Up Harvard Law School Talk, Oct. 24, 2013 (Video).
  In this groundbreaking conference, Ralph Nader moderates conversations with twelve leading scholars, practitioners, and advocates about transforming America's broken legal system.
• Quoted in The Boston Globe about the potential for cases in the New England Compounding Meningitis case.
• Quoted talking about the Suffolk University Law School IP concentration, Boston Sunday Globe, May 6, 2012. Read the Boston Globe article.
• Quoted in Thomson Reuters News & Insight about our recent study of Arbitration in social media, May 04, 2012.  Read the article.
• Interview for the Chicago Tribune: Non-Economic Damages in medical malpractice cases, January 29, 2003.
• Review by Stephen J. Herman of Prof. Rustad's article In Defense of Tort Law in November 2001 issue of Trial [PDF]
• Prof. Rustad quoted in October 15, 2001 article in Computer World: Attacks Prompt Debate Over Software Security: Should vendors be held accountable?
• Suffolk names Professor Michael Rustad to the Thomas F. Lambert, Jr., Endowed Chair.  Remarks by Prof. Rustad Accepting Lambert Chair
• Read more about Professor's Rustad's impact on Suffolk's Law School graduates.

Honors and Awards