With two new joint degrees, Northern Kentucky University has become the first law school in the country to offer degrees linking law and informatics.
“We want to pull together the study of informatics with the legal analysis of the contractual practices which are shaping business and commerce,” said Jon Garon, inaugural director of the Chase Law and Informatics Institute.
The institute held its first classes beginning this past August and offers two joint degrees: a juris doctor/masters of business informatics and a juris doctor/masters of health informatics.
Students at the institute focus on the study of the rapidly changing field of law in the age of enormous amounts of data and ever-changing technology, including disruptive technologies, which Garon explains as “something that is changing the way businesses interact with their customers.”
A case in point, he said, is digital photography. With analog photography, ownership was simple. But, with digital files and the Internet, there are more questions about ownership and fair use than ever before.
As technology continues to evolve, there is an increasing need for companies, even at the small, family-owned level, to understand what they need to protect and how to do that.
“We are developing a much more strategic lawyer, one who understands not only the technical aspects of a contract, but also is able to advise a company on their internal practices and their approach to legal issues,” Garon said.
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