First-class academicians and practitioners

Pauline is a research assistant and PhD candidate at the Bucerius Center for Transnational IP, Media and Technology Law and Policy. She studied law at Bucerius Law School and Queen Mary University of London, and passed the first German state examination in 2021. Pauline is currently writing her PhD thesis on the links between IP and the circular economy. Her research is focused on intellectual property law, fashion and sustainability.

Dr. Stefan Dittmer is Partner at Dentons. He advises companies on all aspects of intellectual property law, including licensing, with a focus on technology, media and digitization. He represents clients in disputes relating to unfair competition, copyright, trademarks, patents and designs, and in general commercial disputes before courts of law and arbitral tribunals.

Dr. Philipp Dohnke is a partner in the intellectual property and information technology practice at the Hamburg office of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. He focusses on transactions in the pharma, biotech and broader life science sector, including on product and site divestments, collaborations and licensing deals, as well as projects relating to the digitalization of the sector and the implementation of data driven business models.

Michael Friedman studied law at the University of California at Berkeley before later practicing as an attorney in the San Francisco Bay area as public defender. In addition to having served as an external lecturer at Bucerius since 2006, he has instructed on negotiation in various settings, including at the Universities of Graz and Innsbruck as well as at the GISMA Business School in Hannover. He has lived in Hamburg since 2004 where he works with the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law. 

Keith J. Hand is Professor of Law and Director of the Center for East Asian Legal Studies at the University of California Law, San Francisco.  He brings more than 25 years of professional experience in private practice, government, and academia to his teaching and research.  After graduating from the University of Washington School of Law in 2000, he joined the New York office of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, where his practice focused on mergers and acquisitions and private equity funds. He later served as senior counsel to the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China and as Beijing director, senior fellow, and lecturer-in-law at Yale Law School’s China Law Center.  At UC Law SF, Professor Hand teaches Contracts, International Business Transactions, and several specialized courses on the Chinese legal system.  His research focuses on legal reform in Greater China, and he has been cited as an expert on Chinese legal issues in a wide range of leading media.  Professor Hand is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and a non-resident scholar with the 21st Century China Center at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy. 

Jacek Lagoni supports Google Cloud and online advertising products as an Associate Legal Counsel at Google. He focuses on negotiations of complex deals and contract drafting in the areas of IT law and data protection law.

Allison is the Head of the IP Commercialization Section at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Building on her experience as an intellectual property attorney for a Fortune 500 company and an inventor, her team empowers enterprises, innovators, and creators to maximize their potential through the creation and commercialization of IP. She has worked with more than 50 countries to develop their legislative frameworks and support businesses through their creativity and ingenuity.

Tal Niv joined UC Law SF in 2024 as the Director of Applied Innovation, where she is responsible for advancing the law school’s ambition to be a premier educational hub for the next generation of technology lawyers.

Before joining UC Law SF, Tal held significant roles such as General Counsel, Vice President of Law and Policy, and Deputy General Counsel at prominent organizations including GitHub, PlanetScale, and Creative Commons. Her previous experience also includes working as a technologist in various tech startups. In these capacities, Tal explored pivotal Law & Technology issues, providing expert insights and contributing to academic and policy discussions in both the US and EU. This deep engagement has equipped her with a profound understanding of the legal environment’s impact on innovation and creativity, and a strong drive to develop legal and regulatory frameworks optimized for technological advancements.

Furthermore, she has cultivated a nuanced understanding of delivering legal services to innovators in uncertain regulatory landscapes. Tal has effectively leveraged this expertise in her Internet and Artificial Intelligence courses at UC Law SF over the past few years.

Tal is enthusiastic about training the best technology lawyers to serve innovative tech companies and is passionate about the center’s vital role in the Bay Area’s law and technology community. She takes pride in her contributions to thought leadership on tech law and policy, the adaptation of legal frameworks to meet emerging technology challenges, and shaping the future of legal education and the legal profession.

Zoi Michalopoulou, LL.M. is an associate lawyer at Dentons. She advises and represents national and international clients in all matters of intellectual property and technology law. She focuses in particular on licensing agreements, unfair competition, trade secrets, copyright and trademark law. Zoi is qualified as a German attorney-at-law (Rechtsanwältin) at the Berlin Bar Association, in addition as a Greek attorney-at-law (Dikigoros) at the Athens Bar Association. As a doctoral candidate at the Bucerius IP Center, she has written her dissertation on digital exhaustion in copyright law and blockchain-related issues.

Prof. Dr. Ritlewski is Of Counsel at Orth Kluth in Berlin and a professor at the Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences. He focuses his practice on litigation and strategic advice in all fields of IP law, unfair competition and media law. Prof. Ritlewski has written several publications on Intellectual Property Law and Policy, Media Regulation and International Arbitration.

Lezel directs the Foreign Language Communication Program at Bucerius. In addition to being a Qualified English Language Teacher accredited through the University of Cambridge, she is also a Qualified Lawyer in South Africa and member of the Cape Law Society. She is a part-time lecturer at the Macromedia University for Media and Communication in the area of Media Law and IP Law.

Stefan Papastefanou advises domestic and international clients in the areas of intellectual property (IP), especially patent law and licensing, information technology (IT), with a focus on data protection as well as the law of trade secrets and know-how.

Christian joined Hogan Lovells in 2001 and is a partner in the Hamburg office. He is specialized in intellectual property matters with a particular focus on patents, trademarks, unfair competition and license agreements.

Karsten Thorn received a doctorate in law at the University of Trier. In February 2004, he completed his post-doctoral thesis on the "Coordination of Private Legal Systems through the Application of Foreign Conflicts Law," as well as with an audition lecture on "Bearing of Risk after the Cancellation of Contract" at the University of Trier. Later that year, Thorn accepted the chair of Civil Law, Private International and International Commercial Law and Comparative Law at Bucerius Law School.

Dr. Westpfahl is a Certified Specialist in Intellectual Property Law and partner at ROSE & PARTNER. She advises national and international companies on all aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and IP and IT related contracts, such as license agreements, research and development agreements as well as IP assignment and transfer agreements. Her practice also includes drafting and negotiating distribution contracts.

Thomas Vinje is Special Counsel at Clifford Change. He is specialised in European antitrust and intellectual property law, with a particular focus on technology issues.

He advises major corporations on all areas of antitrust law, including merger control, dominance and cartel cases, and cases involving the interface between competition and IP law.

Thomas Vinje is a Non-Governmental Advisor (NGA) to the European Commission on unilateral conduct matters.

He speaks regularly on European Union intellectual property and antitrust law and has authored numerous articles and book contributions on these topics. He lectures at the Universities of Amsterdam and Zurich and sits on the Board of Editors for "Computer und Recht International" and "European Intellectual Property Review".

Thomas is a member of Clifford Chance's global Antitrust Risk team.