Like most of my dean colleagues, I am in a constant search for new ways to expand the career opportunities of my students. We all aspire to arming our students with skill sets that differentiate our students in the job marketplace. This fall, Golden Gate University launched a new effort to assist its students in securing jobs in the technology sector by acquiring the prestigious McCarthy Institute. The Institute is jointly sponsored by the university’s law and business schools.

Golden Gate University’s location within a few block radius of the offices of many of the major tech companies—Facebook, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google, etc., — and the job growth in the sector made the choice an obvious one.

Golden Gate hired Professor David Franklyn, the director of the McCarthy Institute and an expert on IP and technology law, giving him a joint appointment in the schools of law and business.

The university’s professors and students work closely with technology companies and become experts on issues related to tech, law, and business. To give you a concrete example, a first research project for the McCarthy Institute at GGU is to determine how to value a trademark in technology companies.  The institute faculty will work with students in the law and business schools and a marketing professor from the University of Chicago (a member of the McCarthy Institute’s Board), with a goal of producing cutting-edge research.

Sponsors of the Institute range from law firms such as like Morrison and Foerster, legal publishers, such as Thomson West, tech companies, such as Google, and trademark associations such as the International Trademark Association.

The Institute is a significant augmentation of Golden Gate’s Center for IP and Privacy Law.  As many of you may know, the Center produces the IP Law Book Review, a frequently updated review of recently published books in the IP field.  Reviews are written by a panel of IP scholars and practitioners.