A 36 year-old Harvard professor who has become the legal mastermind of cyberspace holds the future of Microsoft Corp – and Bill Gates’ $38bn fortune in his hands. Lawrence Lessig has been appointed special master to advise Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in his consideration of the Justice Department’s case against Microsoft. Lessig is regarded as one of the fastest rising stars in the hot new field of internet law – a man who established his reputation with a 1966 paper on cyber pornography. He’s a hard man to categorize as he tends to take the middle ground in the running debate between those who want to impose laws on cyberspace and those who advocate total freedom. But his judgement on whether Internet Explorer is an integral part of the Windows operating system will be the most far- reaching of his career.
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