Education

• University of Notre Dame B.A. 1998
• University of Notre Dame J.D 2001

Courses

• B708 Information Privacy Law I
• B728 Information Privacy Law II
• B792 Internet Law
• B501 Contracts

Biography

Joseph A. Tomain is a Senior Lecturer at the Maurer School of Law where he teaches Information Privacy Law I and II, Contracts, and Internet Law. He has also taught several First Amendment and Media Law courses to undergrads. Tomain has extensive experience in practice, teaching, and scholarship on free speech rights and privacy law, particularly in online environments. In addition to his role as Senior Lecturer, Tomain is Director of the Law School’s Cybersecurity and Information Privacy Law Program and is a Senior Fellow at IU’s Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research. He is a recipient of the Trevor R. Brown Award (for contributions to student journalism) and the Trustees Teaching Award.

Tomain’s practical experience includes serving as a civil litigation attorney at Frost Brown Todd, with an emphasis on media law, and providing in-house legal services to a major media company as Senior Media Counsel. His academic experience includes serving as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law, and an adjunct faculty member at the Georgia State University College of Law and the University of Georgia School of Law. His articles have been published or are forthcoming in several law journals, including the Drake Law Review, Indiana Law Journal, Michigan State Law Review, University of Cincinnati Law Review, University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy, and Washington University Journal of Law & Public Policy. He recently served on a panel with Carl Bernstein discussing “Legal Attacks on the Media,” which can be viewed here.

Currently, Tomain is co-chair of the American Bar Association Forum on Communications Law’s Teach Media Law Committee and is a member of the Forum’s Annual Conference Planning Committee. Previously, he served as Chair of the Ohio State Bar Association’s Media Law Committee, and as President of the Notre Dame Club of Greater Cincinnati. Tomain’s civic contributions also include providing expert commentary on free speech issues to the popular press, such as the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, and Wired.

Tomain earned his undergraduate degree in Government and International Relations at the University of Notre Dame, and his J.D., cum laude, at the University of Notre Dame Law School.

Selected works

• Cultivating Free Speech Culture, 80 Wash. U. J. L. & Pol’y __ (forthcoming 2026)
• Interpreting Anti-Boycott Laws in the Shadow of the First Amendment, 36 U. Fla. J. L. & Pub. Pol’y (forthcoming 2026)
• Ninth Amendment Neurorights, 100 Ind. L.J. 1959 (2025)
• “The Virus of Liberty”: John Perry Barlow, Internet Law, and Grateful Dead Studies, 5 Grateful Dead Studies 14 (2021/2022)
• Teaching Information Privacy Law, 59 Washburn L.J. 445(2020)
• Big Data and the Fourth Estate: Protecting the Development of News Media Monitoring Databases,12 Bus. & Tech. L. 53 (2016)
• Online Privacy and the First Amendment: An Opt-In Approach to Data Processing, 83 U. Cin. L. Rev. 1 (2014)
• Advancing Technology and Aging Democracy in FREE SPEECH IN AN INTERNET ERA (C.P Walker and R.L. Weaver, Eds.). Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2013
• First Amendment, Fourth Estate, and Hot News: Misappropriation Is Not a Solution To The Journalism Crisis, 2012 Mich. St. L. Rev. 769 (2012)
• Cyberspace is Outside the Schoolhouse Gate: Offensive, Online Student Speech Receives First Amendment Protection, 59 Drake L. Rev. 97 (2010).

Interests

• First Amendment
• Free speech
• Media law
• Internet law
• Privacy law

Related links

• Social Science Research Network
• ORCID

Areas of expertise

• First Amendment
• Internet law
• Privacy law