The Law School has received a $5.4 million gift and bequest from Lillian R. and the late Jack N. Berkman. The funding will support the Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman Professorship for Entrepreneurial Legal Studies, as well as the activities of the School's Center for Internet and Society, which will now be known as the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Lawrence Lessig, a specialist in the areas of contracts, Constitutional law, and the law of cyberspace, has been named the first Berkman professor. Lessig, who joined the faculty last summer, taught Contracts during the fall semester and High-Tech Entrepreneur during the January winter term.

The Berkman Center for Internet and Society encompasses the activities now headed by Professor and Center Director Charles Nesson and Lessig. Through its sponsorship of research and teaching, as well as national and international conferences and business and academic initiatives, the Center focuses on a range of worldwide legal and business issues raised by existing and new forms of information technology.

"We are enormously grateful for the generous support that the Berkmans have given to Harvard Law School," said Dean Robert Clark. "The Berkman Professorship and the Berkman Center will allow us to expand our teaching and research activities into important, developing areas of the law."

Jack Berkman, JD '29, was a pioneer and highly successful entrepreneur in the communications industry. He was chairman of The Associated Group, Inc., and its predecessor, Associated Communications Corp. Together with his son, Myles P. Berkman, JD '61, and his two grandsons, Jack Berkman and his family transformed their vision of the future of communications into significant operation businesses. This included a portfolio of radio and television broadcasting stations, paging systems, cable television systems (later merged into Tele-Communications Inc. [TCI], making Associated one of the largest individual stockholders of TCI), and one of the nation's first cellular telephone companies (sold in 1994 to SBC Communications Inc.). Associated today remains a pioneer in fixed wireless telephony, as a co-founder of Teligent Inc., a facilities based competitive local exchange carrier, and in mobile location technology through Associated's development of "TruePosition." Jack Berkman's legacy continues today with the Berkmans' continued pursuit of evolving communications interests.

"The initiatives of the Berkman Center are, and will be, a reflection and legacy to my father's passion for the information age, new technology and the businesses built around them, and the law," said Myles Berkman.

Jack Berkman's wife, Lillian Berkman, who received a B.A. and an M.A. summa cum laude from New York University, is a vice president of The Associated Group Inc. and is a distinguished art collector. She is active on many corporate and nonprofit boards. Mrs. Berkman joined the Harvard Law School Visiting Committee in 1996 and is a charter member of the HLS Dean's Advisory Board. She has been a Fellow in Perpetuity of the Metropolitan Museum of Art since 1964. She serves on the board of the Sterling National Bank of New York, and has served on numerous other corporate boards including Allied Stores and Michigan National Corp. She is president of the General Alarm Corp. and of the Rojtman Foundation. Mrs. Berkman has served as cultural adviser to Coca-Cola and the government of Costa Rica. The University of the Philippines awarded her an honorary doctorate in the humanities in 1976, and Marquette University awarded her an honorary D.F.A. in 1996.