Sarah Deutsch is a practicing attorney with considerable experience on Internet policy and related legal issues. Sarah worked for over 23 years at Verizon Communications as Vice President and Deputy General Counsel in its Legal Department. She managed the company’s global intellectual property practice and team of legal and technical personnel responsible for trademarks, domain names, copyrights, patent licensing and portfolio management and unfair competition issues. Her responsibilities included federal, state and international matters involving counseling, litigation, and Internet policy, including close coordination with Verizon’s technical teams and engineers.
Sarah has served as a subject matter expert in Verizon’s Legal Department on Internet issues since the mid 1990s. She has extensive experience in IP policy, online liability issues, privacy, cyber-security and consumer protection issues and related advocacy before the US Congress, federal agencies, state legislatures, and global bodies including WIPO, OECD, and other legislative and regulatory bodies. Sarah was the first attorney to oversee Verizon’s Privacy Office, including managing its Chief Privacy Officer, privacy attorneys and staff. She was a Lecturer of Law at Harvard Law School, teaching a class in online privacy in 2019.
Sarah was one of five negotiators for the U.S. telecommunications industry in the negotiations that led to the passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. She also served as a Private Sector Advisor to U.S. Delegation to the WIPO Copyright Treaties and to the G8 Cybercrime Conference. Sarah was the 2014 recipient of the Managing IP In-House Counsel Award at the American Women in Business Law Awards. In 2009, she received the Public Knowledge President’s Award for Extraordinary Dedication to Protecting the Free Flow of Information Over the Internet.
Sarah has been involved in ICANN issues since its inception, working on numerous issues over the years with the Business Constituency and the IPC. She has also coordinated closely with the ISPCP. Sarah served as the Business Constituency’s Commercial Stakeholder Group representative, and also represented the BC on the Nominating Committee. She currently serves on the Board of the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, the nonprofit Edgemoor Research Institute and the nonprofit National Center for Health Research.
Prior to joining Verizon, Sarah was an associate in the law firm of Morgan, Lewis Bockius. She holds a J.D. from American University, Washington College of Law and a B.A. from Emory University. She was nominated to serve on the ICANN Board by the Nominating Committee in 2017. Her term will expire at the Annual General Meeting 2023.
