James Hicks
Associate Professor of Law
James’s research and teaching interests focus on intellectual property, innovation law, and empirical legal studies. His current projects draw on methods from statistics and data science to re-examine some of the core tenets of intellectual property theory, and to better understand how and when patents and copyrights incentivize the creation of new technological and creative works. James’s work has been published in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed journals, including the Northwestern Law Review and the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies.
James received a J.D. and a Ph.D. in Jurisprudence and Social Policy from the University of California, Berkeley. He received a B.A. in Political Science from Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He previously served as Academic Fellow at Columbia Law School and the Fellow in Law, Business, and Innovation at Berkeley Law.
- Education
- Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 2021
- J.D., University of California, Berkeley, 2014
- B.A., Reed College, 2028
- Courses
- Copyright Law
- Survey of Intellectual Property Law
- Law and Economics Colloquium
- Areas of Expertise
- Intellectual Property Law
- Innovation Policy
- Empirical Legal Studies
- Law and Economics
- Publications
- Do Patents Drive Investments in Software?, 118 Northwestern University Law Review 1277 (2024)
- Do Social Movements Spur Corporate Change? The Rise of “MeToo Termination Rights” in CEO Contracts, 98 Indiana Law Journal 125 (2022), (with Rachel Arnow-Richman and Steven Davidoff Solomon)
- The Future or Fancy: An Empirical Study of Public Benefit Corporations, 11 Harvard Business Law Review 113 (2021), (with Michael Dorff and Steven Davidoff Solomon)
- Copyright and Economic Viability: Evidence from the Music Industry, 17 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 696 (2020), (with Kristelia García and Justin McCrary)
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