#143: Woodrow Hartzog - Law Professor and Privacy & Technology Law Expert

Welcome back to another episode of the How I Lawyer Podcast, where Professor Jonah Perlin interviews lawyers about what they do, why they do it, and how they do it well.

Today's guest is Professor Woodrow Hartzog, an internationally recognized expert in privacy and technology law whose work has been published in numerous top journals and books. Before becoming a law professor, Woodrow followed a nontraditional path that included earning his JD/MBA from Samford University, practicing at the regional law firm Burr and Forman, earning an LLM from George Washington University Law School, working as a trademark attorney at the US Patent and Trademark Office, and ultimately earning a PhD in mass communications from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In this episode, Professor Hartzog shares valuable insights about privacy, technology law, and career development including:

🌐⚖️ How his undergraduate journalism class sparked his interest in technology law when his professor admitted "nobody knows what the law of the Internet's going to be" [3:24]

🎵💿 How writing about Napster for his college newspaper and receiving feedback about copyright infringement further pushed him toward law school [4:11]

🔍📱 How the events of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent USA Patriot Act made him think seriously about privacy issues for the first time [5:04]

📚✍️ How he discovered his passion for academia when he realized he was writing law review articles about privacy "for fun" while working as a trademark attorney [11:29]

🎓🔄 How his mentor Dan Solove told him being a "privacy attorney" wasn't yet a real career path in the early 2000s—a reality that has dramatically changed [10:26]

🌊🚣 How sometimes you need to "feel where the river is taking you" in your career while still making intentional choices [13:16]

🎯💭 How the most important writing advice he received was that readers will only remember one thing from anything you write—so make that one thing count [32:51]

📝🧠 How his writing process often starts with "white hot rage" about something wrong that needs fixing, then breaking complex concepts into simpler parts [32:21]

🔑🚪 How reaching out to professors and mentors is crucial for success—"people are kind and want you to succeed" [40:18]

❓🧠 How asking questions, even when afraid of looking foolish, is essential because "real wisdom is understanding what you don't know" [41:31]

This episode is sponsored, edited, and engineered by LawPods, a professional podcast production company for busy attorneys.