Why This Firm Now
Hi! We’re Kendra Albert and Andy Sellars, and we’re public interest technology and media lawyers.
You may know one or both of us from our work in the technology law clinical space - Kendra was previously at the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard Law School, and Andy is at the BU/MIT Student Innovations Law Clinic. Together, we’ve formed Albert Sellars LLP. (Creative naming is not our forte.)
Our primary motivation is simple: it is hard for folks who are doing work toward justice involving tech and speech to find affordable counsel that shares their values and is committed to their goals.
Both of us felt like there was more work to be done than we had the opportunity to do in our clinical jobs. We saw issues where our law clinics could not provide support—the work was too big, too longitudinal, or it would require too much preexisting expertise or relationships. But we also knew it wasn’t always well served by existing law firms: the clients were unusual, the work advocacy centered, motivated by desires other than profit maximization. We developed a shorthand as we started thinking about this: “bad fit for a clinic, too weird for a (regular) law firm.” And although advocacy organizations sometimes fill that niche, they can’t take on everyone.
Often, these clients were up against or challenged the traditional clients of technology firms. They speak truth to power. They challenge the status quo. They were, in short, exactly the people who deserve to have a lawyer in their corner. Or frankly, if we’re following the boxing metaphor through, having a lawyer help them dodge the punch.
To solve this problem, and for our radical new career change, we are opting for perhaps the single most conventional thing a lawyer can do: start a legal practice. “Hanging out a shingle” is a cliche for a reason—there’s few other ways for lawyers to get as much control and flexibility to pursue the work they believe in, in ways that are sustainable for everyone involved.
We’re bringing the expectations we drilled into our students from our previous practices to Albert Sellars, namely that we:
Serve our clients’ goals, and not our own
Commit to providing every client with high quality careful lawyering
Are invested in our clients and in it for the long haul
And we’re bringing the people and professionals that we are:
Already immersed in the space
Nerdy and careful about the details
Fun to work with (if we do say so ourselves!)
It’s a new format, but it’s the same work: we want to help our clients make the world better, in the ways only they can. We hope you’ll reach out to us if that’s you.
