The Nominating Committee is pleased to announce the following slate of nominees for 2024–2025 Officer, Council, and Section Delegate positions in the Science & Technology Law Section. The Section membership will vote on the slate of candidates during the Section’s Annual Business Meeting, which immediately follows the Council Meeting on August 2, 2024, during the 2024 ABA Annual Meeting.
May 09, 2024 Section News
ABA Science & Technology Law Section Nominees for 2024-2025 Section Officer, Council, and Section Delegate Positions
Section Chair
Joan R. M. Bullock is the owner of Reformed Law Prof SM, a consulting firm with the mission of empowering legal professionals with the critical skills and tools necessary for building a successful and sustainable 21st-century legal practice. Bullock is a Michigan lawyer and CPA who has practiced before the United States Tax Court and provided business advisory services to law firms and various organizations. She has more than 30 years of experience in the legal academy as a professor of law and more than a decade of decanal experience spanning three law schools. Bullock currently serves as chair-elect of the ABA Science & Technology Law Section. She is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a past chair and delegate to the ABA House of Delegates for the ABA Law Practice Division, and a former member of the Council for Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Educational Pipeline. She is the author of How to Achieve Success After the Bar: A Step-by-Step Action Plan and a chapter contributor to The Best Lawyer You Can Be: A Guide to Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Wellness, both published by the ABA Law Practice Division. Bullock holds a JD from the University of Toledo College of Law, an MBA from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, and a BA degree from Michigan State University.
Section Chair-Elect
Lois D. Mermelstein is of counsel at Garg Law Firm and also operates her own law office. She currently focuses her practice on patent prosecution, particularly for software, semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI), and other computer related technologies. Mermelstein also has patent litigation experience, and prior to law school, she worked as a software and firmware engineer and team leader. Mermelstein also writes, speaks, and puts on CLE programs involving AI and other technology-related legal subjects. Mermelstein s currently serves as the ABA Science & Technology Law Section’s Vice Chair and is a senior editor of the SciTech Lawyer. She is also a past editor-in-chief of the magazine. She serves on the ABA’s Standing Committee on Technology and IT, co-chairs a subcommittee focusing on AI and robotics for the Business Law Section and is Business Law’s liaison to SciTech. She also chaired Business Law’s Technology Committee. Mermelstein holds a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto, an MS in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California, and a JD from Washington & Lee University School of Law. She is admitted to practice in Virginia, Texas, and before the USPTO.
Section Vice Chair
Matthew Henshon is a founding partner of Henshon Klein, where he focuses on a wide range of issues affecting corporations, including governance, intellectual property and technology licensing, and mergers and acquisitions. Henshon currently serves as the secretary of the ABA SciTech Section. His experience includes representing all sides of the privately held, emerging company: founders, investors, and employees. Prior to forming the Allerton Law Group, he served as special assistant and senior advisor to Senator Bill Bradley during Senator Bradley’s campaign for the presidency. and as his “traveling chief-of-staff.” He has written multiple law- and business-related articles in legal and business publications, and his political analysis has appeared on the New York Times Op-Ed page. Previously, Henshon worked at the Boston law firm of Hill & Barlow, P.C. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1991 with a JD cum laude, and from Princeton University in 1991 with an A.B. cum laude from its Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. At Princeton, He was a starter at forward for Princeton’s Ivy League champion basketball team and was twice named a District II Academic All-American. In 1990, he played in the then-most-watched men’s college basketball game in the history of ESPN (Princeton vs. Arkansas, NCAA First Round), a record that lasted for 16 years. He was recently featured in an ESPN 30-for-30 Short entitled “The Billion Dollar Game,” about the Princeton-Georgetown game the previous season.
Secretary
Christopher A. Suarez, CIPP/US, is a partner at Steptoe LLP in Washington, D.C. Trained in electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chris is both a litigator and counselor whose practice focuses on emerging technologies, particularly at the intersection of artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. His litigation experience spans patent, copyright, and trade secret litigation, and he has represented both plaintiffs and defendants at every level of the U.S. Court system, including the Supreme Court, Federal Circuit, and U.S. District Courts. As a counselor, Suarez provides advice on AI governance and policies, IP portfolio management and policies, IP licensing, and privacy. Suarez is currently serving as the Budget Officer of the ABA SciTech Section and has served on various roles and committees. He has been a co-editor of two recent SciTech books: The Internet of Things: Legal Issues, Policy, and Practical Strategies (2019), and the forthcoming Artificial Intelligence: Legal Issues, Policy, and Practical Strategies (2024). Suarez advocates for diversity and pro bono in the legal profession. He is a member of both Steptoe’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee and is active in the Leadership Council for Legal Diversity. Suarez obtained his J.D. from Yale Law School.
Budget Officer
Paul Lanois is a director at the European law firm Fieldfisher, based in the Silicon Valley, where he advises clients on data protection, privacy, and cybersecurity matters. Lanois is also an adjunct faculty at UC College of the Law, San Francisco (formerly known as UC Hastings), where he teaches privacy compliance. He is currently a member of the CIPP/US Exam Development Board at the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). Lanois has previously worked on technology transactions at large international law firms London, UK, France, and Luxembourg, was an associate professor at the University of Cergy-Pontoise Law School in France, and was vice president and senior legal counsel at a leading international bank, Credit Suisse, at its headquarters in Switzerland as well as its Hong Kong office. Lanois is also a member of the Executive Committee of the California Lawyers Association’s Privacy Law Section. Paul was selected by The Recorder as a winner of the 2022 California Legal Awards in the category of “Lawyers on the Fast Track (under 40).” He was named in the Global Data Review “40 under 40” (2021) and in the “Cybersecurity & Data Privacy Trailblazers” by the National Law Journal (2016).
Section Delegate
Eric Y. Drogin is a two-term past chair of the ABA SciTech Section and a Sustaining Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. He serves as an instructor for the Harvard Law School Trial Advocacy Workshop and as an adjunct professor of Law and Mental Health for the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law. Drogin is currently the chair of the ABA Senior Lawyers Division Center for Excellence in Elder Law and Dementia and a commissioner of the ABA Commission on Law and Aging. He was previously a co-chair of the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists and a commissioner of the ABA Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law. Drogin received his JD degree from the Villanova University School of Law. Currently holding faculty appointments with Harvard Medical School, the Harvard Mass General Brigham Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship Program, and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Harvard Medical School Psychiatry Residency Training Program, Drogin is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, a fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Psychology, and a Diplomate and past president of the American Board of Forensic Psychology. He is the affiliated lead of Psycholegal Studies for the Psychiatry, Law, and Society Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Drogin received his PhD in Clinical Psychology from Hahnemann University.
Council
Michael G. Gruden, a counsel at Crowell & Moring LLP’s Washington, D.C. office, is a former Pentagon information technology acquisition branch chief and a leading cybersecurity lawyer who helps government contractors navigate privacy, cybersecurity, and contract compliance requirements. Drawing from his experience at the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Gruden represents some of the nation’s largest defense contractors, cloud service providers, and tech companies. Gruden is a Certified Information Privacy Professional with a U.S. government concentration. He is also a registered practitioner under the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification framework. Gruden serves as co-chair of the ABA SciTech Section’s Homeland Security Committee as well as the Coalition for Government Procurement’s Cybersecurity Committee. Gruden’s legal practice covers a wide range of counseling and litigation engagements at the intersection of government contracts and cybersecurity. Gruden has served as a cybersecurity subject-matter expert for leading False Claims Act proceedings and investigations. His privacy and cybersecurity practice includes cybersecurity compliance reviews, risk assessments, data breaches, incident response, regulatory investigations and cyber diligence for corporate transactions. He also helps clients develop incident preparedness strategies and table-top exercises to assist companies in mitigating risks presented by data breach incidents.
Tamra T. Moore is an attorney with more than 15 years of private and public sector litigation and regulatory experience, which she leverages to counsel clients navigating the gray areas associated with the intersection of technology and policy. Her private sector experience includes her current position as in-house counsel at a Fortune 500 global financial services company, where she advises the chief data officer and others on legal and regulatory compliance for the development and use of artificial intelligence and machine learning models in consumer-facing products and internal operations.
Moore’s public sector experience includes over a decade as senior counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Division, Federal Programs Branch where she served as lead counsel in over a dozen complex civil challenges filed against the United States seeking to overturn nationally significant federal government policies and programs. Moore previously served as a law clerk to judges on both the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island.
Jaipat Singh Jain is a partner in the New York City law firm of Lazare Potter Giacovas & Moyle LLP. Jain represents domestic and international technology and other clients in transactional matters, principally private mergers and acquisitions; private securities transactions; and choice, organization, and governance of business entities. His clients regularly also seek his counsel in matters relating to data transfer and privacy, licensing and development of technology, employment, distribution and supply, asset-based lending, commercial mortgage lending, leasing and conveyance of commercial real estate, and international trade and financing. His clients include fintech and telepathology companies, manufacturers of specialty chemicals, global conglomerates engaged in mining and manufacturing, private equity funds, among others.
Jain came to the United States as an international business executive, first as a manager and then as the country manager of the U.S. branch of one of South Asia’s largest global trading companies. As a lawyer, he sees his role as helping clients create wealth and make sound business decisions. He is often the lawyer of choice for private transactions between India and the United States and resolution of business disputes. Jain is on the Board of Directors of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, is a member of New York Attorney Grievance Committee (First Department), and is a life fellow of the American BarFoundation. He has served as chair of ABA’s India Committee, chair of Legal Practice, Ethics & Delivery of Legal Services Division, on the editorial board of the ABA/ Bloomberg Law Lawyers’ Manual on Professional Conduct, and as vice chair of the EPrivacy and Cloud Computing Committees of the ABA SciTech Section. Jain is honorary trustee of International Mahavira Jain Mission (Siddhachalam), a nonprofit, and its former president and vice-chair. Jain is a frequent speaker at business and law conferences has chaired continuing legal education programs.