Lawrence Lessig

Lawrence Lessig, the host of ‘Another Way’ Podcast is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School. Prior to returning to Harvard, he taught at Stanford Law School, where he founded the Center for Internet and Society, and at the University of Chicago. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and for Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.

Lessig is the founder of Equal Citizens and a founding board member of Creative Commons, and serves on the Scientific Board of AXA Research Fund. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, he has received numerous awards including a Webby, the Free Software Foundation's Freedom Award, Scientific American 50 Award, and Fastcase 50 Award. Lessig holds a B.A. in economics and a B.S. in management from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in philosophy from Cambridge University, and a JD from Yale.

Cited by The New Yorker as “the most important thinker on intellectual property in the Internet era,” Lessig has turned his focus from law and technology to “institutional corruption”—relationships which, while legal, weaken public trust in an institution—especially as that affects democracy. Lessig is a widely published author. His most recent book, They Don't Represent Us: Reclaiming Our Democracy (2019), focuses on explaining the sources that have broken American democracy and how to create a better government for the people. His other titles include: Fidelity & Constraint: How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution (2019), America, Compromised (2018), Republic, Lost v2 (2015), The USA is Lesterland (2014), One Way Forward (2012), Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It (2011), Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy (2008), Code v2 (2006), Free Culture (2004), The Future of Ideas (2001), and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999).

Lessig is an authority on the challenges facing American democracy, and the hope for solutions.

• Challenges (including any one or all of: money in politics, gerrymandering, voter suppression, the filibuster, the electoral college)
• Solutions (including reforms in congress and constitutional reform (including an Article V “constitutional convention”)
• The threats from AI and social media to our democracy, and strategies for repair.

How the Net destroyed democracy

Available for viewing from the Ted Talks

The United States: Another Minoritarian Nation

Available for viewing from Ted Talks

Our democracy no longer represents the people. Here's how we fix it

Available for viewing on Ted Talks

The most important thinker on intellectual property in the Internet era

- The New Yorker

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Lessig paints a searing portrait of a defective political system that is nonetheless full of hope, community spirit, self-empowered individuals, and ways to fix what is broken.

- Foreign Affairs