Marc PEARL became partner and head of the e-commerce/technology government
relations practice at Shaw Pittman, Washington, DC, on August 1, 2000. For the
past five years Mr. Pearl was senior vice president for government affairs and
general counsel of the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA),
where he coordinated ITAA’s overall public policy agenda, in particular its Intellectual
Property Counsels’ Committee and its Information Security Legal Advisory &
Legislative Working Group. Mr. Pearl’s area of expertise includes development
and advocacy of e-commerce/Internet policies for the information technology
industry, focusing on information security, ISP liability, and intellectual property/
database protection. He represented the ITAA and its international affiliate
organization, the World Information Technology Services Alliance, in numerous
international fora and negotiations, and served as a member of the US government
delegation to the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization’s Diplomatic
Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. Mr. Pearl coordinated the IT industry coalition
regarding the 1998 Information & Readiness Disclosure Act and the 1999 Y2K
Act. He received his J.D. from Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.