Privilege - 11/12

Tired. Brain still hurts.

Today was the second day of our two-day seminar on the legal aspects of basic science and clinical research. Here are some of the highlights:

Export Controls: Intellectual property can be considered an export. As can all that wonderful information rattling around inside your gray matter. Sending an email with technical information in it is no different than sending a FedEx package with technical information in it. If you send information to embargoed states, you are potentially violating the embargo depending on what you sent. If you go to an embargoed state for the purpose of disseminating information, you are potentially violating the embargo.

Good Clinical Practice: Don't do an "Enron." Don't tellthe federal investigator that you lost the records because of (pick your favorite): fire, flood, natural disaster, shredder malfunction. Basically it's the federal equivalent of "The Dog Ate My Homework" excuse. Your third grade teacher didn't buy it, and the feds don't either - and they can do a lot more than just give you an "F" on the assignment.

I'm not sure that our general counsel anticipated what was going to come up in this session. He was a bit pale when we began asking questions about Blackboard and knowledge-sharing. Not long after that he declared the session "privileged." He also looked a bit gray after the session was over. As in "what did I get myself into??" One problem with academics - if there is information to share - we generally share it first, then worry about the implications of it afterwards. Worrying about the implications of information sharing first is a bit new to many of us.

Sigh. Brave new world - especially for me. One foot in law student mode, the other firmly in educator mode. The law student wanting to chase down the implications. The educator in me wanting to go and hide under the bed and pretend it was all just a bad dream.

T-minus 2 months, 19 days, and counting.