Lawrence Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Prior to rejoining the Harvard faculty, Lessig was a professor at the University of Chicago and Stanford Law School, where he founded the school’s Center for Internet and Society.

Lessig clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court. He serves on the Board of the AXA Research Fund, and on the advisory boards of Creative Commons and the Sunlight Foundation. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Association, and has received numerous awards including the Free Software Foundation’s Freedom Award, Fastcase 50 Award and has been named one of Scientific American’s Top 50 Visionaries.

In addition to his academic work, Lessig founded numerous activist organizations dedicated to ending the corrupting influence of money in politics, including the New Hampshire Rebellion, Rootstrikers and MayDay PAC. In the summer of 2015, Lessig announced his run as a Democratic candidate in the 2016 Presidential race. The sole objective of Lessig’s campaign is to bring awareness to the necessity of transformative campaign finance reform reflected in his Citizen Equality Act, a series of legislative reforms creating an equal right to vote, equal representation in government and citizen- funded elections.

Lessig holds a B.A. in economics and a B.S. in management from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in philosophy from Cambridge, and a J.D. from Yale Law School.