Jon M. Garon

Professor of Law, Hamline University School of Law

of counsel, Gallagher, Callahan & Gartrell

 Admitted to practice law in California, New Hampshire, and Minnesota 

Jon Garon is a nationally recognized authority on intellectual property, particularly copyright law and entertainment and media law. When he joined Hamline University School of Law as Professor and Dean of the School of Law on July 1, 2003, he brought fifteen years of practicing and teaching law to the Hamline community. On July 1, 2008, Dean Garon returned to teaching full time as he retired from his position as Dean to remain on the Hamline faculty as Professor of Law. In fall 2008, Professor Garon toured China and Hong Kong lecturing on issues of intellectual property and international entertainment law. He returned to teaching at Hamline in January 2009.

From 1988 to 1989, Garon worked at Shea & Gould which became Myerson & Kuhn in Los Angeles, California, specializing in employment law, film financing, and recording agreements, business formation, and copyright and trademark licensing. From 1990-1993, he ran a solo practice in Laguna Beach, California, where he practiced a wide range of entertainment, corporate, and real estate law. From 1994-1996, he worked for Hawes & Fischer, in Newport Beach, California, facilitating growth of entertainment law, and negotiating and drafting software, multimedia, development, and music agreements.

He began teaching in 1993, when he became a professor at Western State University College of Law in Fullerton, California. There he taught all aspects of intellectual property, entertainment, and business law. He served as chairperson on the curriculum committee, and served as founding president of the Western State Law Foundation. From 1996 to 1998, he served as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs. From 1999 to 2001, he was on the Dean's Advisory Board, and from 1998 to 2001, he was a member of the Entrepreneurial Law Center Advisory Board. In 2000, he joined the Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, New Hampshire, where he taught intellectual property, entertainment, and business law until joining Hamline as Professor and Dean of the School of Law in 2003.

He earned a bachelor of arts from University of Minnesota (Twin Cities) and a juris doctor from Columbia University School of Law.

Selected Publications

• "Take Back the Night: Why an Association of Regional Law Schools Will Return Core Values to Legal Education and Provide an Alter ", 38 University of Toledo Law Review 517 (2007) "
• Own It - The Law & Business Guide to Launching a New Business through Innovation, Exclusivity and Relevance (Carolina Academic Press, forthcoming Sept. 2007)
• "Acquiring and Managing the Identity Interests for Software and Media Products" ", 1 Entertainment Law Review 41 (2006)" PDF
• "Entertainment Law and Practice" " (Carolina Academic Press, 2005)"
• "Theater Law: Cases and Materials " "(Carolina Academic Press, 2004; 2005 supp.) (with others)"
• "Normative Copyright: a Conceptual Framework for Copyright Philosophy and Ethics" ", 88 Cornell Law Review 1278 (2003)" PDF
• The Independent Filmmaker’s Law and Business Guide: Financing, Shooting, and Distributing Independent and Digital Films (A Cappella Books, 2002)
• "The Electronic Jungle: the Application of Intellectual Property Law to Distance Education" ", 4 Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment Law and Practice, 146 (2002)" PDF
• "Entertainment Law" ", 76 Tulane Law Review 559 (2002)" PDF
• "Media & Monopoly in the Information Age: Slowing the Convergence at the Marketplace of Ideas" ", 17 Cardozo Arts and Entertainment Law Journal 491 (1999)" PDF
• "Star Wars: Film Permitting, Prior Restraint & Government's Role in the Entertainment Industry" ", 17 Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Journal 1 (1996)" PDF
• Charity Begins at Home: Alternatives in Nonprofit Regulation , 2 Western State University Consumer Law Journal 1 (1993)

Ongoing Programs

• Entertainment Law: Representing the Independent Artist
• Introduction to International IP: Lawyers and business managers increasingly negotiate across political and cultural boundaries in today's professional environment. Based on a ?cradle-to-grave? approach to international deal-making, the Hamline Italy Program courses collectively teach students how to negotiate and draft international commercial transactions effectively, as well as use negotiation and other consensual dispute resolution processes to preserve and improve business relationships. These materials provide students a background and framework on the international aspects of intellectual property, including copyright, trademark, patent, and trade secret, which serve as the backbone for many international trade aspects. These materials introduce multinational agreements developed by the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization of the United Nations.
  • Background and supplemental reading: Jon M. Garon, Introduction to International Intellectual Property (pdf)
  • Italy Program at Hamline University School of Law
  • World Intellectual Property Organization
  • World Trade Organization - Trade Related Aspects of IntellectualProperty Rights
• STRATEGIC IDENTITY AND THE BRANDING OF LAW SCHOOLS (pdf)
  Presented at the American Association of Law Schools Section on Pre-Legal Education and Admission to Law School,Co-sponsored by the Section on Institutional Advancement