Brooklyn Law School Professor Jonathan Askin is the mastermind behind BLIP, or the Brooklyn Law Incubator & Policy Clinic (BLIP). Launched in 2008, Askin, along with a group of law students, assist tech start-up entrepreneurs with a host of legal issues, including privacy, disclosure, equity and ownership. BLIP offers students both a work-study environment, as well as law firm of sorts, which offers representation to entrepreneurs that may be, per BLIP's website, “oblivious to the legal, political, policy and business obstacles standing between the vision of their business and the realization of their business.”
A prime example of an entrepreneur that BLIP has assisted is Jigar Mehta, who created “18 Days in Egypt”, a modern day documentary about the Egyptian protests in 2011. The social media documentary is comprised of YouTube videos, Tweets, photos, videos, blogs and more, that were all generated at that time. Mehta's main concern was how to create his documentary without stepping on any privacy or copyright toes, so to speak. Following his experience with BLIP, which helped him deal with these types of issues and more, Mehta found he was taken more seriously when he sought investors to fund his project.
Though the program has no official course prerequisites, students are well served who are seeking to become technology oriented attorneys, and who have a background in telecommunications, the internet, intellectual property law and the like.
Jonathan Askin has over ten years of experience in the communications industry. Not only did he play a major role in the technology task force for President Barack Obama's election campaign, he served in both the roles of president and general counsel for the Association for Local Telecommunications Services. In addition, he was employed as an attorney with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Other universities, aware of the opportunities that exist in both the legal and technological fields, have established programs to serve those ends. Duke University and the University of Pittsburgh have a law and entrepreneurship program; the Universities of Wisconsin, Oregon and Pennsylvania have established law and entrepreneurship clinics.
Founded in 1901, Brooklyn Law School was the first law school on Long Island. Since its inception, minorities, women, and immigrants were free to attend Brooklyn Law School. In 2011, U.S. News ranked Brooklyn Law School 67th in its list of top 100 law schools.
