Politics and the Law

Fred Campbell

Fred Campbell Adjunct Law Professor

Fred Campbell is Executive Director of the Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology and a member of the Space, Cyber and Telecommunications Law Program Advisory Board. Mr. Campbell was formerly a Fellow and Director of the Communications Liberty and Innovation Project at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, President and CEO of the Wireless Communications Association International, Chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and Wireless Legal Advisor to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. He has also served as a judicial clerk for Nebraska Supreme Court Justice William M. Connolly and an Arabic linguist in the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army. Mr. Campbell earned a Diploma in Modern Standard Arabic at the Defense Language Institute, a B.S. from Excelsior College, and a J.D., with high distinction, from the University of Nebraska College of Law.

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Professor Brian Lepard

Brian D. Lepard Harold W. Conroy Distinguished Professor of Law

Professor Lepard is a leading expert in the fields of international law, human rights law, comparative law, and tax law.  He joined the faculty in 1995. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University in 1983. At Princeton, he was named a Scholar of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and concentrated on the study of international law and organization, receiving a prize from the Woodrow Wilson School for his thesis on the development of the idea of the League of Nations in France during the First World War. Following his graduation from Princeton, he worked for three years as an international human rights law specialist at the United Nations Office of the Baha'i International Community, a non-governmental organization. In 1989, he received his J.D. degree from Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Journal of International Law.  From 1989 until 1995 he practiced tax law as an associate with the Philadelphia-based law firm of Dechert Price & Rhoads, with a special focus on international tax law as well as exempt organizations law.

Professor Lepard has multidisciplinary scholarly and teaching interests in the fields of international human rights law; humanitarian intervention; international legal theory; comparative law, including comparative religious law; ethics; and tax and business law, including international tax law. He is the author of eight books and numerous articles relating to these diverse subject areas. Professor Lepard has spoken on the subjects of international law, human rights, and comparative law at conferences and other gatherings around the world, including in Albania, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, France, French Polynesia, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.

Professor Lepard holds the Harold W. Conroy Distinguished Professor of Law chair at the College of Law.  He is the faculty adviser for the Law College’s program of concentrated study on international human rights law.  He is a member of the editorial review boards of a number of academic journals, including The Journal of Human Rights, Religion and Human Rights:  An International Journal, and The Journal of Baha'i Studies. He currently serves as chair of the Committee on the Formation of Customary International Law of the American Branch of the International Law Association and has served as chair of the International Legal Theory Interest Group of the American Society of International Law.  He is a member of the International Board of Consultants of the Global Ethics and Religion Forum and of the Board of Advisors of Genocide Watch.  He has also served as faculty adviser to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Bahá'í Association.

During the 2019-2020 academic year, Professor Lepard is teaching International Human Rights Law Seminar, Comparative Law: World Legal Systems and Their Relevance to U.S. Law and Practice, International Perspectives in the U.S. Legal System: Practicing Law in a Global Legal Environment, and Business Planning.

Professor Lepard is admitted to practice in Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and before the U.S. Tax Court.  He is fluent in French and proficient in Portuguese. 

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Christal Sheppard

A. Christal Sheppard Lecturer

Dr. Christal Sheppard was the first Director of the first United States Patent and Trademark Office located outside of the nation’s capital in 227 years. Prior to joining the Agency, she was assistant professor of law at the University of Nebraska where she co-founded a program of Concentrated Study in Intellectual Property law. In 2018, she joined IPwe, a patent based, startup company headquartered in Paris, France, as Executive Vice President for Strategy and Business Development. IPwe applies blockchain and artificial intelligence to the patent ecosystem to create a global marketplace for patent assessment, due diligence, licensing, sale and portfolio management. 

Dr. Sheppard's educational background includes an M.S. and Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Michigan, a J.D. from Cornell University Law School, completion of Harvard’s Executive Education – Senior Managers in Government, the Federal Executive Institute’s - Leadership for a Democratic Society and George Mason University Law and Economic Center’s Economic Institute for Law Professors programs. She is currently enrolled in the University of Michigan Ross School of Business Executive Master of Business Administration (MBA) Program. 

She has over two decades of Science and Intellectual Property Law and Policy work experience including as practicing attorney at Foley & Lardner, the United States International Trade Commission, the United States Patent and Trademark Office and internships with Judge Rader at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the Executive Office of the President's Office of Science and Technology Policy. 

Her successful career in intellectual property law and policy also includes her tenure as Chief Counsel on Patents and Trademarks for the United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary where she was integral in many endeavors including the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, the most comprehensive change to this nation's intellectual property laws in over 60 years. 

Dr. Sheppard’s commitment to education is so strong that she continues to teach two courses a year, Patent Law and International Intellectual Property, at the University of Nebraska law college, in her free time. 

Dr. Sheppard has testified before the United States Congress and been quoted by the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones News Wire, Fox Business News, the Chicago Sun Times, Politico and others on a variety of intellectual property and business issues. She regularly presents on intellectual property matters, from basics to advanced, to solo inventors, incubators, small and large companies, students, professors, attorneys, regulators, judges, administrators, regulators and others throughout the innovation ecosystem. 

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