
Andrew Sellars
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BU/MIT STUDENT INNOVATIONS LAW CLINIC
Clinical Associate Professor of Law
BS, Northeastern University
JD, The George Washington University School of Law
Biography
Andrew Sellars is a Clinical Associate Professor of Law and the founding director of the Technology Law Clinic, a legal service for undergraduate and graduate students at MIT and BU. In the clinic, BU Law students counsel clients on laws and regulations that affect their research, advocacy, and innovation, including intellectual property, media law, data privacy, and cybersecurity law. Sellars has overseen the legal representation of hundreds of student clients through his work in the clinic, representing computer security researchers, public interest advocates on technology and society issues, creators of innovative new technologies, and student journalists. His scholarship focuses on application of intellectual property and computer access laws to technology research and journalism, including permissionless investigation of technology systems.
- Profile Types
- Faculty, Full-Time Faculty, Intellectual Property & Entrepreneurship, and Professors & Clinical Instructors
- Areas of Interest
- Intellectual Property & Information Law, Law & Technology, Media & First Amendment Law, and Privacy
Publications
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Madelyne Xiao, Andrew Sellars & Sarah Scheffler, When Anti-Fraud Laws Become a Barrier to Computer Science Research ACM CS+Law '25 (2025)
Scholarly Commons -
Azer Bestavros, Stacey Dogan, Paul Ohm & Andrew Sellars, Bridging the Computer Science – Law Divide November 2022 CSLAW '22: Proceedings of the 2022 Symposium on Computer Science and Law (2022)
Scholarly Commons -
Data Generated by New Technologies and the Law: A Guide for Massachusetts Practitioners
Scholarly Commons -
Andrew Sellars, Twenty Years of Web Scraping and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 24 Boston University Journal of Science & Technology Law (2018)
Scholarly Commons -
Andrew Sellars, Defining Hate Speech (2016)
Scholarly Commons
In the Media
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The Crimson April 22, 2025
Experts Say Harvard Has a Strong Case in Legal Battle Against Trump
Andy Sellars is quoted.
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The Daily Free Press March 21, 2025
Detention of Columbia’s Mahmoud Khalil Raises Concerns over Protest Rights at BU
Andy Sellars is quoted.
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The Justice February 6, 2024
‘Dialogue & Action in an Age of Divides’: Discussing Free Speech
Andrew Sellars is quoted.
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Mass Media February 2, 2024
Massachusetts Universities Host Dialogue on Free Speech
Andrew Sellars is quoted.
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The Heights January 31, 2024
“Dialogue and Action” Panelists Weigh Free Speech and Hate Speech on University Campuses
Andrew Sellars is quoted.
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The Christian Science Monitor July 18, 2023
Can Threads, the ‘Friendly’ Twitter, Make Social Media Nicer?
Andrew Sellars is quoted.
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WBUR July 14, 2023
Mass. Could Be First State to Ban Sale of Cell Phone Location Data
Andrew Sellars is interviewed.
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BU News Service March 27, 2023
State Senator Drafts Legislation to Regulate Tools like ChatGPT—with the Help of ChatGPT
Andrew Sellars is quoted.
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Wired July 12, 2021
GitHub’s Commercial AI Tool Was Built From Open Source Code
Andrew Sellars is quoted.
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TechTaraget January 17, 2021
Big Tech’s Uneasy Balance of Capitalism, Censorship
Andy Sellars is quoted.
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Nieman Lab October 30, 2020
Facebook’s Threat to the NYU Ad Observatory Is an Attack on Ethical Research
A piece by Andy Sellars.
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MIT News July 16, 2020
BU-MIT Law Clinics Help Students Bring Innovations into the World
BU Law clinics featured.
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February 14, 2020
Vote on Your Phone? BU School of Law Clinic Helps Expose Security Flaws in Voter App
Andy Sellars interviewed in <em>BU Today</em>.
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January 27, 2020
Clearview’s Face Surveillance Shows Why We Need a Strong Federal Consumer Privacy Law
Andrew Sellars quoted in <em>Electronic Frontier Foundation<em/>.
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August 14, 2018
Plastic Guns, Nuclear Bombs, and the Endless Debate Over Free Speech and Public Safety
Andrew Sellars quoted in "Plastic Guns, Nuclear Bombs, and the Endless Debate Over Free Speech and Public Safety," WGBH.
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Stories from The Record
Activities & Engagements
No upcoming activities or engagements.
Book Symposium on “The Networked Leviathan: For Democratic Platforms” by Professor Paul Gowder
Get DetailsHate and Free Speech Talk
Get DetailsCourses
SILC: Privacy, Security and Technology Seminar 1: LAW JD 866
THIS CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have formally applied to and been accepted to the Student Innovations Law Clinic. The BU/MIT Student Innovations Law Clinic (SILC) provides counseling and guidance to assist MIT and BU students with laws and regulations that relate to their innovation-related academic and extracurricular activities. As a companion to SILC Fieldwork course, in Privacy, Security, & Health Seminar 1 students in SILC's Privacy, Security, and Health Practice Group meet to review substantive legal issues in information privacy, cybersecurity, and health law and how they relate to SILC's practice, including issues in consumer privacy; sectoral privacy in health, finance, and education; cybersecurity and breach response; and FDA regulation of information technology and devices. The seminar will also introduce students to the lawyering skills (including interviewing, counseling, negotiation, drafting, etc.) that will help them in counseling MIT and BU students on their creative and innovative projects. This class will occasionally meet with some or all of the students in the other SILC Practice Group sections for clinic-wide discussions and case round presentations. NOTE: This Clinic counts toward the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option.
FALL 2024: LAW JD 866 A1 , Sep 3rd to Dec 5th 2024Days | Start | End | Credits | Instructors | Bldg | Room |
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Tue | 2:10 pm | 4:10 pm | 2 | Andrew SellarsChris Conley | LAW | 418 |
SILC: Privacy, Security and Technology Seminar 2: LAW JD 869
THIS CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have formally applied to and been accepted to the Student Innovations Law Clinic. The BU/MIT Student Innovations Law Clinic (SILC) provides counseling and guidance to assist MIT and BU students with laws and regulations that relate to their innovation-related academic and extracurricular activities. As a companion to SILC Fieldwork course, in Privacy, Security, & Health Seminar 2 students in SILC's Privacy, Security, and Health Practice Group expand upon the legal and practice issues reviewed in the fall seminar, including issues in consumer privacy; sectoral privacy in health, finance, and education; cybersecurity and breach response; and FDA regulation of information technology and devices. This class will occasionally meet with some or all of the students in the other SILC Practice Group sections for clinic-wide discussions and case round presentations. NOTE: This Clinic counts toward the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option.
SPRG 2025: LAW JD 869 A1 , Jan 13th to Apr 23rd 2025Days | Start | End | Credits | Instructors | Bldg | Room |
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Tue | 2:10 pm | 4:10 pm | 2 | Andrew SellarsChris Conley | LAW | 513 |
Student Innovations Law Clinic: Fieldwork: LAW JD 725
THIS CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have formally applied to and been accepted to the Student Innovations Law Clinic. The BU/MIT Student Innovations Law Clinic provides counseling and guidance to assist MIT and BU students with laws and regulations that relate to their innovation-related academic and extracurricular activities. The clinic provides counseling in a variety of different areas of law, organized into three practice groups: (1) Intellectual Property & Media; (2) Privacy, Security, & Health; and (3) Venture & Finance. Representation of clients can include client counseling, contract and policy drafting and review, negotiation with third parties, and, if capacity allows, litigation and other dispute resolution. CO-REQUISITE: If students have not done so already, students must take at least one course in any one of the following four areas: (1) intellectual property (either an IP survey course or other core IP course such as patent, copyright, trademark, or trade secret); (2) privacy (including information privacy law or information risk management); (3) cybersecurity; or (4) corporations. NOTE: The Technology Law Clinic counts toward the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option.
FALL 2024: LAW JD 725 A1 , Sep 3rd to Dec 5th 2024Days | Start | End | Credits | Instructors | Bldg | Room |
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ARR | 12:00 am | 12:00 am | 4 | Andrew SellarsChris Conley |
Days | Start | End | Credits | Instructors | Bldg | Room |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ARR | 12:00 am | 12:00 am | 4 | Ari LipsitzVictoria Tang |
Days | Start | End | Credits | Instructors | Bldg | Room |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ARR | 12:00 am | 12:00 am | 4 | Vivian EtterTom Patten |
Days | Start | End | Credits | Instructors | Bldg | Room |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ARR | 12:00 am | 12:00 am | 4 | Andrew SellarsChris Conley |
Days | Start | End | Credits | Instructors | Bldg | Room |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ARR | 12:00 am | 12:00 am | 4 | Ari LipsitzVictoria Tang |
Days | Start | End | Credits | Instructors | Bldg | Room |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ARR | 12:00 am | 12:00 am | 4 | Vivian EtterTom Patten |