Robert Spoo is Of Counsel with the firm's Litigation Department. He concentrates his practice in intellectual property, copyrights and general litigation.

Mr. Spoo has experience providing copyright and intellectual property advice and litigation assistance to a wide range of clients including universities, libraries, scholars, writers, sports media, record companies and filmmakers and software technology companies. He has advised Vietnam 's Ministry of Education and Training regarding the development and protection of intellectual property within the country's university system.

Mr. Spoo is a tenured Associate Professor at the University of Tulsa College of Law, where he teaches a range of courses including Copyright Law, Contracts, Constitutional Law, and Decedents' Estates and Trusts. Previously, he served as law clerk to the Honorable Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and worked as an attorney with law firms in New York and San Francisco. Prior to entering the legal profession, Mr. Spoo was a tenured member of the English Department at the University of Tulsa and served for ten years as Editor of the James Joyce Quarterly. He has authored or edited numerous books and articles on modern fiction and poetry, and regularly publishes and speaks on copyright law and other legal subjects.

Areas of Practice:

Copyright and Intellectual Property Advise and Litigation 
Intellectual Property Counseling & Transactions  
Commercial Litigation 

Bar Admissions:

Oklahoma
New York
California
U.S. Court of Appeals 9th Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals 10th Circuit
U.S. District Court Northern District of California
U.S. District Court Eastern District of New York
U.S. Bankruptcy Court Southern District of New York
U.S. District Court Northern District of Oklahoma
U.S. District Court Western District of Oklahoma

Education:

Yale Law School, New Haven, Connecticut, 2000
Juris Doctor
Honors: Michael Egger Prize
Law Journal: The Yale Law Journal, Executive Editor

Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
Ph.D. in English
Honors: Whiting Fellowship in the Humanities

Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
M.A. in English

Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin
Bachelor of Arts in English
Honors: Magna Cum Laude
Honors: Phi Beta Kappa

Published Works:

Selected Writing on Copyright Law and Other Legal Subjects :

Extra Pound's Copyright Statute; Perpetual Rights and the Problems of Heirs , forthcoming The UCLA Law Review, vol 56, 2009

A Casebook on Shloss v. Estate of James Joyce , In Progress

Three Myths for Aging Copyrights: Tithonus, Dorian Gray, Ulysses , National Library of Ireland Monograph Series, Joyce Studies 2004, No. 6, 2004

Ulysses, Bloomsday, and Copyright, in Yes I Said I Will Yes , New York: Vintage Books, 2004

Selected Writings on Copyright Law and Other Legal Subjects:

Copyright Protectionism and Its Discontents: The Case of James Joyce's Ulysses in America. [Winner of Yale Law Journal's Egger Prize. Cited in Nimmer on Copyright], The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 108, No. 3 (1998): 633-67.

Fair Use of Unpublished Works: Scholarly Research and Copyright Case Law Since 1992 , Tulsa Law Journal, Vol. 34, No. 1 (1998): 183-200

Current Copyright Law and Fair Use , Journal of Scholarly Publishing, Vol. 33 (2002): 125-41

Injuries, Remedies, Moral Rights, and the Public Domain , James Joyce Quarterly, Vol. 37 (2000): 333-51

Copyright Law and Archival Research , Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 24, No 2 (Winter 2000/2001): 205-12

No Word is an Island: Textualism and Aesthetics in Akhil Reed Amar's The Bill of Rights , University of Richmond Law Review, Vol. 33, No. 2 (1999): 537-78

Selected Literary Scholarship and Criticism:

James Joyce and the Language of History: Dedalus's Nightmare , Oxford University Press, 1994

Ezra and Dorothy Pound: Letters in Captivity , 1945-1946 (with Omar Pound), Oxford University Press, 1999

H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Asphodel , [Unpublished novel from 1927, edited, with introduction, textual note, and biographical appendix], Duke University Press, 1992

Patronage of the Arts . The Ezra Pound Encyclopedia, Greenwood Publishing, forthcoming

Joyce Scholars, Editors , and Imaginary Readers, College English, Vol. 60 (1998): 330-35

Ulysses and the Ten Years War: A Survey of Missed Opportunities , TEXT: An Interdisciplinary Annual of Textual Studies, Vol. 10 (1997): 107-118

H.D. Prosed: The Future of an Imagist Poet. The Future of Modernism, ed. Hugh Witemeyer , (University of Michigan Press, 1997): 201-221

'Nestor' and the Nightmare: The Presence of the Great War in Ulysses. Joyce and the Subject of History, eds. Robert Spoo et al., (Univ. of Michigan Press, 1996): 105-24

The Making of Modern American Poetry: Four Aspects , Princeton University Library Chronicle, Vol. 55 (1994): 365-86

Classes/Seminars Taught:

Contracts, The University of Tulsa College of Law, 2008 - Present

Constitutional Law II, The University of Tulsa College of Law, 2008 - Present

Decedent's Estates and Trusts, The University of Tulsa College of Law, 2008 - Present

Literature and Law, University of Tulsa, 2008 - Present

Copyright Law, The University of Tulsa College of Law, Spring 2005, 2005 - 2006

Media and Entertainment Law, The University of Tulsa College of Arts and Sciences, Fall 2004, 2004 - 2005

Copyright Basics for Architects (with Rachel Blue), American Institute for Architects, Tulsa, Oklahoma, February 22, 2005

Copyright Law for Science Fiction Writers, Conestoga 8: Science Fiction Writers Conference, Tulsa, Oklahoma, July 17, 2004

"Ethical Issues in Oklahoma Summary Process." Continuing Legal Education Seminar on Summary Judgment, Tulsa County Bar Association, December 17, 2003

"Copyright Myths and Truths for Writers." How We Make & Are Made by History. (Co-Speaker with Rachel Blue), Nimrod/Hardman Writers Conference. University of Tulsa, October 25, 2003

"Contests, Sweepstakes and Lottery Law Issues; E-Commerce/Online Contracts; Data Collection Issues", Lorman Education Services Seminar; Tulsa, OK, July 30, 2003

"Copyright Law for Science Fiction Writers." Conestoga 7: Science Fiction Writers Conference, Tulsa, OK, July 20, 2003

"Copyright Law for Songwriters" (Co-Speaker with David Iandiorio), Nashville Songwriters Association International, Tulsa Chapter; Bartlesville, OK, July 17, 2003

Honors and Awards:

Lucia R. Briggs Distinguished Achievement Award - Lawrency University, 2008 - Present

Elected Editor-in-Chief, Tulsa Law Journal, Volume 34, University of Tulsa College of Law, 1998 - Present

Professional Associations and Memberships:

International James Joyce Foundation
Legal Counsel

Twentieth Century Literature
Copyrights Editor

Journal of Modern Literature
Copyrights Editor

James Joyce Quarterly
Copyrights Editor

Modernist Journals Project
External Advisor

Past Employment Positions :

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Hon. Sonia Sotomayor, Law Clerk

Howard Rice Nemerovski Canaday Falk & Rabkin, P.C., Associate Attorney, 2006 - 2008

Doerner, Saunders, Daniel & Anderson, L.L.P., Associate Attorney, 2003 - 2006

Debevoise & Plimpton, New York Office, Associate Attorney, Intellectual Property Group

University of Tulsa, Associate Professor of English and Editor, James Joyce Quarterly