The USC Gould School of Law Intellectual Property Institute recently recognized Laura Burson, Senior Counsel at O’Melveny & Myers LLP, for her service as the Institute Chair during the two-day Institute on March 18-19.
Burson, who has served as chair for the past two years, began her tenure on the Planning Committee in 2014, the inaugural year of the Women in IP Breakfast. She will be succeeded by Tamerlin Godley, Partner at Paul Hastings, who graduated from USC Gould School of Law in 1996.
Ellen Robbins, Litigation Partner at Akerman and longtime member of the IP Institute Planning Committee, introduced Burson at a dinner following the first day of the Institute that included sponsors, speakers and planning committee members.
Following the introduction, Philip H. Lam, IP Counsel at the Office of the Los Angeles City Attorney and longtime Planning Committee member, presented Burson with a commendation from the Office of the City Attorney for her dedicated service to the IP Institute.
John Ulin, partner at TroyGould and previous Institute Chair, presented Burson with the recognition. “Passing the baton to Laura has been a great success both for diversity and the practical success of the Institute,” said Ulin. “She is just a person who gets stuff done. Under her leadership, the Women in IP Breakfast very quietly became a cornerstone of the Institute.”
Following Burson’s recognition, Donald Hoffman, Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, presented on the physics of how humans perceive and interact with reality and how science has evolved to understand the process during the last decade. Hoffman is the author of over 100 scientific papers and three books including “The case against reality: Why evolution hid the truth from our eyes” (2019).
“I’m almost certain that space and time are illusions,” said Hoffman. “Science for centuries has only studied spacetime, and in the last ten years, our species is taking off the [metaphorical] headset and asking what’s outside of that framework.”
Hoffman went on to forecast the importance of IP in the advancement and protection of the ongoing research.
Read Laura Burson’s full bio here and Tamerlin Godley’s full bio here.
USC Gould School of Law offers continuing legal education opportunities for professionals who want to learn and network with leading experts in their industries. A fixture of the Los Angeles legal community since 1948, USC Gould Continuing Legal Education hosts six annual conferences for professionals at every level to learn from, and network with, the biggest players in entertainment, estate planning, business, tax and intellectual property. To learn more, visit or subscribe at gould.usc.edu/cle – and follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn
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