Brian Downing

• Assistant Professor of Law, University of Mississippi

Brian R. Downing focuses on disruptive technologies and how they are regulated. He is an Assistant Professor of Law, teaching courses in Intellectual Property, Civil Procedure, and Internet-related topics.

Research Interests

Professor Downing's interests include: Artificial Intelligence: Impacts on corporate risk and the legal system. Digital Platforms: European and U.S. platform regulation. Litigation: Modernization of discovery standards. Privacy: Crafting U.S. privacy legislation compatible with speech protections.

Biography

Brian R. Downing is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law. Professor Downing teaches Civil Procedure, Intellectual Property courses, and courses related to developing technologies. His research involves the disruption of legal systems and internet platforms by novel technologies and contemplates how those technologies and platforms should be regulated.

Before joining the faculty, Professor Downing spent 16 years in legal and engineering roles at Google. As one of the early product counsel for the company, he developed products and legal approaches that influenced modern internet law. He counseled and managed legal teams across most of Google's platforms, including advertising, mapping, social networks, broadband, and self-driving cars. Later he led the Google Search legal team for 5 years and ran departmental training initiatives. The latter role inspired a love of teaching that brought Professor Downing to academia. He also spent many years in Google's engineering group. There he created privacy and security engineering teams and led the compliance group for Android, Chrome, and Photos, marrying his legal and engineering leadership to shape digital regulation, particularly in the E.U.

Prior to Google, Professor Downing was an Associate at Proskauer Rose LLP in Los Angeles, representing musicians in copyright disputes. Professor Downing received a B.A. in Government from Claremont McKenna College and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

• –present Assistant Professor of Law, University of Mississippi

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