About

Ronald L. Chichester

Profile Summary:

An attorney, legal engineer, expert witness, computer forensic examiner, and IT systems auditor who is experienced in all areas of law and technology involving computers and networks. 

Specialties: Contracts, Software Contracts, Software Licensing, Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and Regulation of Artificial Intelligence, Blockchains, Cryptocurrencies, Cybersecurity, Privacy (including website policies, app policies, GLBA, HIPAA, GDPR, CCPA and other state laws), Corporate Risk Assessment, Corporate Compliance, Computer Use Policies, Document Retention Policies, Computer Crime, Incident Response, Electronic Discovery, Litigation Discovery, Computer Forensics, Intellectual Property (particularly Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks, Trade Secrets and related Antitrust issues), Developing Business Models for Software Companies, Expert Witness for Intellectual Property Litigation, Electronic Commerce (including PCI, UETA and ESIGN), Internet Jurisdiction, and Technology Licensing (including both closed source and open source software licensing).

Frequent speaker on legal/technology issues, including cyber-security, blockchains, artificial intelligence, computer crime, cloud computing, electronic discovery, intellectual property, legal ethics and law practice management.

Former adjunct professor of Law at the University of Houston for an intellectual property survey course on Cyber-Law (which includes Internet jurisdiction, domain name disputes, trademarks, copyrights, patents, trade secrets, database protection, data privacy, software licensing, electronic-commerce and electronic-discovery) as well as a course on computer crimes involving the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Wiretap Act, wire fraud, criminal copyright law, online threats/harassment, crimes involving children, workplace searches, border searches, and related matters.

Special Skills:

  • Full stack Linux servers (virtual and physical) particularly Debian-based distributions for internet and corporate environments for web-based applications;
  • Python (extensive experience making applications for law practice management and artificial intelligence/machine learning and other automation applications), including experience with Python-based artificial intelligence/machine learning libraries such as Scikit-learn, Tensorflow, and Keras as well as natural language processing using NLTK and SpaCy;
  • Experience with smart contracts and programming languages used for smart contracts and distributed autonomous organizations such as Solidity and Pythereum;
  • Experience with other programming languages, including Javascript, Java, Solidity, Pascal/Object Pascal, C/C++, Prolog, LISP, PL1, and FORTRAN;
  • Virtualization, particularly using virtual machines for online servers;
  • Content management systems (including Plone, Django, Drupal, Joomla, WordPress);
  • Databases, including relational databases, object databases, object-relational databases, NoSQL (document) databases, particularly the ZODB, PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB, MongoDB, and CouchDB; and
  • Python-based web frameworks including: Zope, Flask, Django, Bottle, CherryPy, and Pylons.

Admissions and Certifications:

  • State Bar of Texas
  • United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
  • United States District Courts for the District of Nebraska
  • United States Patent & Trademark Office
  • Certified Computer Forensic Examiner

Professional Activities:

Education:

  • B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan
  • M.S. in Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan
  • J.D., University of Houston Law Center