Heather Whitney is Copyright Counsel for OpenAI. Prior to OpenAI, Heather was a Technology Transactions attorney in the San Francisco office of Morrison Foerster and a member of the firm’s AI Steering Committee. There, Heather provided product counseling and handled a range of IP, technology, and entertainment transactional matters, with a focus on novel AI, copyright, and intermediary liability issues.

Heather also represented several leading companies in the generative AI space (including OpenAI) as well as Kristina Kashtanova, in Kashtanova’s efforts to register works created using generative AI tools.

Prior to MoFo, Heather was in academia. After clerking for Judge Diane P. Wood of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Heather taught at the University of Chicago Law School, where she was a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law. Heather also spent time as a Visiting Researcher at Harvard Law School and Faculty Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society (where she was previously a Fellow). For several years, Heather was also an instructor for Harvard Law School’s CopyrightX course.

Heather holds a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School (where she was the head of submissions for the Journal of Law and Technology) and a B.A. in philosophy, summa cum laude, at UCLA. Heather is currently a PhD student in Philosophy at NYU (copyright and free speech theory x AI x aesthetics).