Practicing and teaching in a field where the technology-and the law-can change in a day is a challenge, but it is where James Tuthill's passion lies. After a 20-year career at Pacific Bell and all of its successors, he now consults and teaches the elective course Telecommunications and Broadcast Law at USF.

"This field is different from contract law, where the basic principles remain fixed and precedents change slowly," he said. "The laws and regulations governing telecommunications and broadcast are in constant flux. In a single day a new state or federal law can dramatically change the rules, or a court decision can overturn long-accepted FCC (Federal Communications Commission) regulations-like the Second Circuit did last spring when it overturned the FCC's fleeting-expletive policy for broadcast TV."

It's not just the law that changes. Telecommunications isn't just phone calls; it encompasses data, e-mail, wireless, and even newer technologies not yet in wide use. Congress, the states, and regulatory agencies struggle to create laws that are likely to be applied to untested-or even unimagined-technologies.

A case in point is the rise of text messaging and a recent incident where Verizon refused to transmit text messages sent by Naral Pro-Choice America. Verizon relied on rules dating to the 1960s that placed such "information services" outside of the "common carrier" principles which prohibit service providers from censoring content. Although Verizon later reversed its position and delivered the messages, the incident prompted Tuthill to write an op-ed published in the San Francisco Chronicle. (Read the full text of "Texting Is Not Calling, Verizon Censors Say) He wrote "This is the exercise of censorship power plain and simple, and except for the imminent perpetration of crimes against persons or property, the carriers should not hold a power denied to the government."

In the Telecommunications and Broadcast Law class, Tuthill covers not just legal principles, but strives to give students insights into the business interests at play. He often puts students in the hypothetical position of general counsel for a fictional company whose president has asked, for example, for an opinion on whether the firm is eligible to bid on an upcoming FCC auction of WiFi spectrum. "I tell them they'll have five minutes with the president to give her a response, and their presentation and answers must be precise. She's not interested in legal debating; she needs to know what business options she has. Providing practical applications of legal principles is just what they will be expected to do on the job," he said.