User:CarolineMarek/RR bio

Richard Raysman is an early practitioner of the law of intellectual property, whose work brought that subject into widespread notice in the United States. An author and lecturer, he is currently in practice in New York City.

Raysman was born on October 9, 1946, in New York City, the son of Victor Raysman and Irene Davies Raysman. He grew up in Valley Stream, New York, a suburb of New York City, graduating from Valley Stream North High School, where he was a track star in the 440-yard race and a member of the tennis team. He received the Athlete-Scholar award for his senior class in 1964.

Raysman received a B. S. in 1968 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he majored in Industrial Management at the Sloan School of Management and minored in computer science.

Early Career: After graduating from M.I.T. Raysman worked at IBM as a systems engineer for six years, based in New York City. In that capacity he guided the information technology departments of major corporations implementing new systems and upgrading to more advanced hardware. He programmed in computer languages such as Assembler, Cobol, RPG and Fortran.

While working for IBM Raysman attended Brooklyn Law School at night. During that time he also joined the U.S. Army Reserve where he served as a Military Policeman for six years, doing his basic training at Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia.

After graduating from law school Raysman left IBM and began the practice of law. In 1978 he opened his own firm in New York City, the first to specialize in the newly evolving field of law relating to computer software, hardware and implementation, now referred to as Intellectual Property law. He wrote articles for The New York Times, the Harvard Business Review and the New York Law Journal to help establish this branch of law as its own specialty. The firm, originally known as Brown, Raysman & Millstein, ultimately grew to 250 lawyers with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Hartford and Toronto. In 2006 Brown Raysman merged with the San Francisco law firm of Thelen Reid & Priest and became known as Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner, having 650 attorneys. In 2008 Raysman left Thelen and joined the New York law firm of Otterbourg, Steindler, Houston & Rosen, PC, where he practices today.

Raysman has published extensively on the topic of Intellectual Property law, including three treatises on the topic as well as newsletters and a monthly column for the New York Law Journal. He has also spoken on this field at numerous conferences, including the International Bar Association, the Outsourcing Interests Group and the Intellectual Technology Law Forum in Europe.

Raysman is married to the former Georgia M. Urbano, a Columbia Law School graduate who is the former President and Chair of the Nantucket Preservation Trust. He has four children.