Minnesota Law Welcomes Professor Jeff Kosseff

Minnesota Law is excited to announce that Professor Jeff Kosseff has joined the University and the Law School this month as the Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law and the director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota's Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication. In addition to his role leading the Silha Center, he will be teaching Cybersecurity Law and Policy at the Law School. 

 

Kosseff is a First Amendment lawyer and former journalist who was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting and recipient of the George Polk Award for National Reporting. He will be teaching Cybersecurity Law and Policy at the Law School. Before joining the University of Minnesota, Kosseff was an associate professor at the United States Naval Academy. He practiced First Amendment and cybersecurity law at Covington & Burling in Washington, DC. He clerked for the Hon. Milan D. Smith, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Hon. Leonie M. Brinkema of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Before becoming a lawyer, Kosseff was a journalist at The Oregonian.

Kosseff has written four books about free speech, the most recent being The Future of Free Speech: Reversing the Global Decline of Democracy’s Most Essential Freedom (with Jacob Mchangama) (Johns Hopkins University Press 2026), which examines recent challenges to free expression worldwide and suggests solutions to reduce global censorship.  He is also the author of Cybersecurity Law (Wiley, 2026), a textbook in its fourth edition. He has published more than 25 academic articles in prominent journals, including the Iowa Law Review, Wake Forest Law Review, and Berkeley Technology Law Journal.

Kosseff has a Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center and a Master of Public Policy and Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan.