Michael M. Epstein

Michael M. Epstein is a tenured professor of law and the director of the Entertainment, Media, and Sports Law Concentration at Southwestern.   Dr. Epstein is the long-time supervising editor of the Journal of International Media & Entertainment Law, published by Southwestern’s Biederman Institute in cooperation with the American Bar Association.    He is also the founding director of the Amicus Project at Southwestern Law School, a pro bono outreach program that invites law students to prepare amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court and in other jurisdictions.

In 2022, Dr. Epstein was awarded a Fulbright Specialist grant in Sierra Leone.   There he created and taught curricula to train journalists and media stakeholders, including government officials, to adapt to the online information environment. In 2025, Dr. Epstein completed a second Fulbright in Slovenia, where he advised the government on ways to curb foreign information manipulation and interference.  In the last decade, Dr. Epstein has developed an international reputation as a thought-leader on ways to mitigate the impacts of online disinformation. He has presented his scholarship on the world stage, including at the University of Stockholm, the University of Luxembourg, the University of Lisbon, the Université Paris Dauphine PSL Research University, the University of Marseilles, and the University of Paris,  Sorbonne-Pantheon. In 2025, Dr. Epstein delivered the keynote address at “The Way Forward,” a Council of Europe conference on digital citizenship.  He also participates in the European Digital Education Hub, a European Union program that brings scholars and experts together to address online education and media information literacy.

An aspiring journalist in college, Dr. Epstein turned to law when a research project for a PBS documentary series on the U.S. Constitution put him in contact with some of the leading lawyers in the country. In law school, he served as Book Review Editor of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review and interned at the Media Access Project in Washington, D.C.  Following graduation, he practiced corporate law, with a focus on media mergers and acquisitions, in New York, before returning to academia for his Ph.D.

In the years since, Dr. Epstein has published on a variety of topics at the intersection of media, entertainment, and law; including artificial intelligence, live music intellectual property rights, crowdfunding creative arts projects, media diversity reform, and broadcast spectrum allocation. He's also written extensively about entertainment culture, including articles on Perry Mason, Law & Order, Star Trek, and the entertainment priorities of television news. Dr. Epstein joined the Southwestern faculty in 1999 and teaches in the areas of business, entertainment, and media law.