PK Intro and Conflicts of Interest

Well just one week into my fellowship at Public Knowledge and my professional responsibility  class from last semester is already coming in useful.  My final project for the PR class was to craft an online statement of my philosophy of lawyering and a disclosure statement about any conflicts of interest, these have been posted here on the site and I will discuss them in more detail after I receive feedback from the professor.  In starting at PK I wrote an intro blog post which included information on the paid fellowship I am on:

After graduating from Seattle University with a JD Brian Rowe relocated out east to Washington DC to spend the summer fighting to ensure that IP law is benefiting the public through the free flow of information as a Google Public Policy Fellow @ Public Knowledge.

Brian is an IP junkie that reads Boing Boing, /. and XKCD for breakfast before breaking into an light afternoon snack of recent federal appeals court case and amici briefs. Brian’s other projects include a legal internship at Creative Commons last summer, four years of work with the Washington State Access to Justice Technology Committee, and helping write Students for Free Culture’s bylaws.

The rest can be read at PK

The first response I received to the post was one questioning my neutrality given that google is paying for my room and board here in DC.  It was very nice to have already considered this issue in advance and be able to direct the concerned party to a statement I had worked on which address these issues exactly.  I believe a large part of being an ethical lawyer is trying to resolve conflicts before they happen.