Victoria L. Schwartz

Biography

Professor Victoria Schwartz is the Director of the Entertainment, Media and Sports Law Program and Professor of Law at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law.    

An expert on intellectual property law, entertainment law and privacy law, Professor Schwartz’s work explores cutting edge issues at the intersection of business, entertainment, technology and privacy law.  Her recent academic articles include AI Influencers and a Right of Publicity, Leveling Up to a Reasonable Woman’s Expectation of Privacy, and The Celebrity Stock Market, which was awarded the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship.  Her earlier Boston College Law Review article, Corporate Privacy Failures Start at the Top, was selected for the prestigious Harvard/Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum.  Professor Schwartz also received the 2015-2016 Dean's Award for Excellence in Scholarship for her article Overcoming the Public-Private Divide in Privacy Analogies.  Her scholarship has also received recognition in a wide variety of fields and has been selected for inclusion in the Securities Law Review, an annual anthology of the best securities law articles, as well as awarded the competitive Dukeminier Award, annually recognizing the best legal scholarship published on the topics of sexual orientation and gender identity.

At Pepperdine, Professor Schwartz has taught intellectual property law, copyright law, entertainment law, remedies, and a unique experiential learning seminar called "Business Perspectives on Workplace Privacy," which is designed to help students learn to advise a client in rapidly evolving fields.  Professor Schwartz was the proud recipient of Pepperdine University's 2017 Howard A. White Award for Teaching Excellence, as well as the 2026 Steven Schultz Upper Division Professor of the Year Award.

Professor Schwartz joined the Pepperdine faculty in 2013 from the University of Chicago Law School where she was a Bigelow Teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Law. Professor Schwartz previously practiced law as part of the Business Trial and Litigation practice of O'Melveny & Myers LLP.  Her practice included complex and appellate litigation, contract law, entertainment law, and intellectual property.  Professor Schwartz graduated in 2004 from Stanford University where she received a BA in Political Science with departmental honors and distinction, a BA in Slavic Languages and Literatures with distinction, and a BS in Mathematics with distinction. She graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2007. Following graduation, Professor Schwartz clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for the Honorable Jay S. Bybee.

Education

• J.D., Harvard University, 2007, cum laude
• B.A., B.A., B.S., Stanford University, 2004, with departmental honors and distinction