President, Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies
Lawrence J. Spiwak is President of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that studies broad public-policy issues related to governance, social and economic conditions, with a particular emphasis on the law and economics of the digital age. Mr. Spiwak is a prolific scholar whose work is frequently cited by policymakers, major news media and academic journals around the world, and is in the top 1.3%of authors downloaded on the Social Science Research Network. Mr. Spiwak currently serves as the co-chair of the Federal Communications Bar Association’s (FCBA) committee responsible for overseeing the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL and is a member of the program committee of the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (“TPRC”). Mr. Spiwak is also the recipient of the FCBA’s Distinguished Service Award. Prior to joining the Phoenix Center, Mr. Spiwak was a Senior Attorney with the Competition Division in the FCC’s Office of General Counsel from 1994-1998. While in college, Mr. Spiwak was accepted into the Presidential Stay-In School program where he was responsible for delivering classified and confidential material among senior White House and Reagan Administration officials and received a full FBI security clearance. Mr. Spiwak received his B.A. with Special Honors from the George Washington University and his J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Mr. Spiwak is a member in good standing of the bars of New York, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Partner, Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP
Rosemary C. Harold joined the firm as a partner in 2011, specializing in media, broadband, and First Amendment issues. She advises a wide range of clients – including commercial and noncommercial broadcasters, cable operators, video programmers, wireless providers, and satellite operators – on legal, regulatory, and policy matters. Her work includes representation of clients in major rulemakings, transactions both large and small, and regulatory compliance counseling. Ms. Harold also regularly provides investors and others in the financial community with insights into developments at the FCC and on Capitol Hill, including the interplay between the agency and lawmakers, as well as inter-agency dealings among the FCC, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Trade Commission on competition issues.
From 2005 to 2011, Ms. Harold served at the Federal Communications Commission, most recently as Legal Advisor to FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell for media and broadband issues, with a particular focus on First Amendment concerns. She earlier served as Deputy Chief of the FCC’s Media Bureau, where she led the staff teams working on major rulemakings such as video franchising reform and media ownership, as well as on major transactional reviews such as the Sirius/XM merger.
Before her government service, Ms. Harold’s work in private practice included FCC regulatory proceedings in the media, satellite, and wireless areas, diversity and EEO matters at the FCC and EEOC, and First Amendment commercial speech matters before the FTC, FDA and federal appellate courts. She began her career as a journalist, including work as a reporter and bureau chief for the Miami Herald, an editor at C-SPAN and, during law school, a columnist for the ABA Student Lawyer magazine.
Ms. Harold frequently speaks at industry conferences and events on media and broadband issues. She currently serves as the co-chair of the Women in Communications Law subcommittee of the American Bar Association’s Forum Committee on Communications Law, an adjunct professor in the Communications Law Institute at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law, and member of Board of Advisors for the Thomas Jefferson Public Policy Program at the College of William and Mary. An active member of the Federal Communications Bar Association, Ms. Harold has served on the FCBA’s Executive Committee and co-chaired the FCBA’s Mass Media Committee, Video Programming & Distribution Committee, and Professional Responsibility Committee.
J.D., Georgetown University Law Center, 1991, magna cum laude
M.A., University of Missouri, 1985
B.A., College of William and Mary, 1980
A Change in Direction for the Federal Trade Commission?
Lawrence J. Spiwak
While antitrust and regulation are supposed to be two sides of the same coin,[1] there...
The FCC Forgot Something in Piecing Together Its Complex Proposal for Broadband Privacy Regulation: Consumers
Rosemary C. Harold
Note from the Editor: This article discusses the FCC’s proposed rules for broadband privacy, and...