Global reach and impact
Brian Thompson, JD '10 came to Pierce Law from a large New England public university of more than 20,000 students and arrived on campus knowing little about the school beyond its reputation for Intellectual Property.
When he arrived on campus, he was surprised by the number of international students who were drawn to the school; he soon realized that Franklin Pierce Law Center was a worldwide leader. in Intellectual Property. "In Latin America and East Asia, Pierce Law is really well-known. It's known abroad better than in the States."
Since its inception, Franklin Pierce Law Center has striven to be a global leader in intellectual property issues that affect related areas of social justice, commerce and technology, and international law at large. In a recent article, faculty members Jon R. Cavicchi and Dr. Stanley P. Kowalski describe the evolution of Pierce Law's intellectual property global reach:
"...in 1986 Pierce Law established the first international, interdisciplinary program in intellectual property rights education in the United States, with specific focus on educating intellectual property rights professionals from developing nations on how intellectual property rights systems work. Over the past two decades, government officials, tech-transfer professionals, research institute administrators and lawyers from over 96 countries have attended these programs, supported by many public and private institutions, including WIPO, the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) and the Fulbright Program."
Brian studies alongside people from China, Columbia, Honduras, Azerbaijan, Taiwan, South Korea, Venezuela, Japan and Brazil and is taught by faculty who appear on the world stage in roles as various as consultant, teacher, advisor and pro bono lawyer.
"One of the reasons I initially applied to Pierce Law was the summer institutes in China and Ireland," Brian says. He chose to attend the school's China Intellectual Property Summer Institute at the Tsingua University in Beijing last year. "I went to China because it's revolutionizing intellectual property, and it is one of the most rapidly changing countries in the world. In just one generation, it has moved away from an agricultural to an information technology based economy and it's exciting that Pierce Law understands how important that is for IP and other legal issues.
"It's great because in many ways we're not just about law, we're about technology. And we're combining the two well... we must be, or we wouldn't be so well-known globally."
