Stuart N. Brotman Biographical Summary
Stuart N. Brotman
Stuart N. Brotman received his J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, where he served as Note and Comment Editor of the California Law Review. He received his M.A. in Communications from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he specialized in communications regulation and policy. He received his B.S. in Communication Studies and Mass Media, summa cum laude, from Northwestern University. As an undergraduate, he also studied international and comparative broadcasting at the Center for Communication Studies in London. Brotman completed the professional programs in negotiation and mediation at Harvard Law School.
He is an appointed member of the US Department of State Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy (ACICIP), serving in an advisory capacity concerning major economic, social and legal issues and problems in international communications and information policy. These issues and problems involve users and providers of information and communication services, technology research and development, foreign industrial and regulatory policy, the activities of international organizations in communications and information, and developing country interests.
During the Carter Administration, Mr. Brotman served as Special Assistant to the President's principal communications policy adviser and Chief of Staff at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in Washington, DC, a 350-person agency with seven offices. In this capacity, he worked closely with the White House, Congress, the FCC, the FTC, the US Department of Justice, other Executive Branch departments, and the research and academic community in developing the first models for telecommunications and information convergence. He also had oversight responsibilities for the US Commerce Department’s Institute of Telecommunications Sciences, the federal government’s R&D facility in Boulder, Colorado, which gave him frequent and extensive exposure to cutting-edge communication technology developments.
Brotman was Project Manager for The Emergence of Pay Cable Television, the comprehensive contract research study that served as the policy foundation for enabling premium programming services such as HBO and Showtime to prosper in the marketplace.
His work spanned a broad range of concerns, including broadcast, cable television and common carrier regulation and industry structure; home video and information services; public broadcasting; direct broadcast satellites; copyright; antitrust law; new communications technologies and programming sources; and federal and state communications legislation. He also served as NTIA's Project Manager for the four-volume contract research study, The Emergence of Pay Cable Television, which served as the policy foundation for enabling premium programming services such as HBO and Showtime to prosper in the commercial marketplace.
Brotman served on the landmark federal task forces that led to the introduction of cellular telephone and direct broadcast satellite services in the United States, and to the development of e-mail as a competitive, commercial service. He also was a part of the team that drafted the first federal legislation covering financial services and health care privacy and was an architect of the competition/deregulation policy paradigm that has revolutionized the communications marketplace.
Brotman also served as President and CEO of The Museum of Television & Radio, the premier trust of television and radio’s heritage. He oversaw all museum operations at its New York and Los Angeles locations, including a collection of 140,000 television and radio programs spanning more than 75 years and representing 70 countries; a staff of 140; a $60 million endowment and a $16 million annual budget.
His activities encompassed management and recruitment; public and industry programming; curatorial and research services; marketing and communications; legal affairs; budget and finance; and development. He also served as a member of the Museum’s Board of Trustees; Los Angeles Board of Governors; Media Center Board of Governors and International Council Advisory Board.
At Harvard Law School, he currently teaches Entertainment and Media Law and serves as a faculty adviser to the Harvard Law School Committee on Sports and Entertainment Law. He also serves on the Harvard Business School Executive Education Program faculty.
Brotman has served in three Presidential administrations, including the landmark federal task forces that led to the introduction of cellular telephone and direct broadcast satellite services in the United States, and to the development of e-mail as a competitive, commercial service. He also was an inaugural member of the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel.
Brotman was the first person ever appointed to the Harvard Law School faculty to teach telecommunications and its first Research Fellow in Entertainment and Media Law, as well. He also served as the first concurrent fellow in digital media at Harvard and MIT, at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and the Program on Comparative Media Studies, respectively.
At the Columbia University School of Journalism, he served as an annual faculty lecturer for the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship Program in Economics and Business Journalism. He also has served as Moderator for the Aspen Institute Italia Seminar for Leaders and as a Research Visitor at the University of Melbourne Law School’s Centre for Media & Communications Law.
Brotman has served as a staff member of The Aspen Institute’s Program on Communications and Society, and as an Information Technology Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. He also has served as a Twentieth Century Fund Fellow in Law and Journalism at the National News Council. In 2000, he was named the first US Eisenhower Fellow in telecommunications, where he focused on telecommunications and Internet developments in Central and Eastern Europe, with a residential base in Budapest, Hungary. The Eisenhower Fellowship, under the leadership of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, is a lifetime appointment, with a network of 1,900 leaders from 106 countries.
He previously taught international telecommunications and public diplomacy at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, where he also served as a Senior Fellow at The Fletcher School's Edward R. Murrow Center for International Communications and as an adviser to Fletcher's Program on International Information and Communication. At the Murrow Center, he worked with an international team that advised the International Telecommunication Union and its foreign affiliates on regulatory issues related to new telecommunications technology developments. He also testified before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives to support the creation of Radio Free Asia, which has emerged as a key public diplomacy resource during the past decade.
At the Boston University School of Law, Brotman served as a member of its comprehensive intellectual property faculty, teaching the only advanced seminar on entertainment law offered at any American law school. Under appointment by the United States Library of Congress, he also served as one of 50 intellectual property experts on the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel that was convened to resolve disputes regarding copyright fees to be paid by cable television companies to producers of film and video programming.
As a Senior Fellow of The Annenberg Washington Program in Communications Policy Studies, Brotman directed major research projects on negotiation and communications policymaking, the Executive Branch and the communications policy process, the Americans with Disabilities Act's telecommunications provisions and the implementation of the Television Decoder Circuitry Act. He also served as Director of The Annenberg Washington Program's Winter Faculty Workshops on domestic and international communications.
Brotman is a member of the State Bar of California, the Bar of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the American Bar Association and the Federal Communications Bar Association. From 1992-95, he served as Chairman of the International Communications Committee, Section of International Law and Practice, American Bar Association. He also is the former Co-Chairman of the American Bar Association’s International Legal Education Committee. From 1992-96, he served as counsel to two major international law firms, Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam & Roberts, where he founded the Communications, Information and Entertainment Practice Group, and Morrison & Foerster LLP.
He served as a founding member of the Board of Editors of the Federal Communications Law Journal, and on the Editorial Advisory Boards of the Berkeley Technology Law Journal, EuroWatch and the Transnational Data and Communications Report.
Brotman has pioneered several academic fields at Harvard University. He was the first to teach communications policymaking at the Kennedy School, telecommunications and entertainment and media law at the Law School, and to serve as a concurrent digital media fellow at Harvard and MIT.
Brotman is a member of the National Advisory Council of the School of Communication at Northwestern University and served as a member of the Advisory Board for Northwestern’s interdisciplinary graduate Program in Telecommunications Science, Management and Policy. He served on the Board of Directors of the Boalt Hall Alumni Association, University of California at Berkeley. He is a founding member of the New England Eisenhower Fellowships Steering Committee and the Communication Arts Advisory Board at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
He served for a decade as a Senior Mentor of the Henry Crown Fellowship Program at The Aspen Institute, which is developing the next generation of community-spirited corporate and civic leaders for the 21st century. He also is an Associate of the World Technology Network.
He is a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the Cosmos Club, and the National Press Club. In 2004, he became the first American named as an Honorary Member of the China Television Broadcasters Association. Brotman also is listed in Who's Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, Who's Who in Finance and Industry and Who's Who in the World. He is a recipient of the Northwestern University Alumni Merit Award for distinguished professional achievement and the Distinguished Alumni Award in Communications from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.