The Fashion Law Project

Loyola Law’s New Fashion Law Project to Include Symposia, Focused Curriculum & Summer Intensive Program

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Loyola Law School is launching The Fashion Law Project, a unique academic center dedicated to advancing the practice of fashion law through innovative curricular offerings, practical-training opportunities and topical symposia. Loyola alumna Staci Jennifer Riordan, partner and chair of the Fashion Law Practice Group at Fox Rothschild LLP, will be the executive director of the program, the first of its kind on the West Coast.

The newly developed curriculum of The Fashion Law Project will include a variety of courses: Introduction to Fashion Law, Fashion Law Business Transactions, Fashion Mergers & Acquisitions, Fashion Modeling Law and the Fashion Law Clinic. A new Fashion Law Sub-Concentration will provide students with a more formal framework for approaching their studies in the field, as well as practical training through hands-on simulations and clinical course work. These new offerings bolster Loyola’s spring 2013 introduction of Fashion Law into the curriculum. Taught by Riordan, it focuses on licensing, fashion financing, import/export rules and celebrity endorsements. 

“The fashion law industry is burgeoning in Los Angeles – now the largest fashion center in the country – and so are its legal issues. There simply aren’t enough qualified lawyers to keep up with demand,” said Riordan (pictured, right), a 2004 alumna of the Law School. “I developed The Fashion Law Project to train attorneys to be well-versed in the nuances of this growing field while helping fashion executives and students with their unanswered legal questions.” 

To keep pace with rapid changes in the practice area, The Fashion Law Project will offer annual symposia on trending topics. The inaugural installment, focused on omnichannel marketing, will explore how technology and social responsibility are impacting the fashion industry. Scheduled for March 22, 2014, the panels are slated to include “Obligations of Being Omniscient” on consumer privacy, “Legality of Influence” on the issues surrounding brand endorsements and “Legally Good: How to be Socially Responsibly and why it’s the ‘Right Thing to Do.’”

“Loyola is committed to curricular innovation, and The Fashion Law Project is no exception,” said Professor Sean Scott, who shepherded the center’s formation as associate dean for faculty. “By leveraging Loyola’s location in the center of a fashion capital, The Project is able to offer courses taught by top practitioners, engage industry professionals, law students and fashion students through clinical work, and foster a scholarly dialogue through symposia.” 

Additional offerings will include the Fashion Law Intensive Summer Program, which will be a 10-day immersion into the business and law of fashion. It will provide essential skills training to attorneys practicing in the field, fashion industry professionals and fashion students. The program is scheduled for late July 2014. 

More information about The Fashion Law Project is available at www.lls.edu/thefashionlawproject. Program news and updates will be made available on Twitter @LLS_FashionLaw