“The Professor”

Nancy King’s law career has led her from the boardroom to the factory to the classroom. Because she taught seminars on dispute resolution and workplace discrimination, she earned the nickname “The Professor” at the Portland law firm of Bullard Smith Jernstedt and Wilson. “I was always teaching somebody,” she says.

She once gave a sexual harassment prevention workshop at 1 a.m. in a plywood mill. “I might have been the first female they ever heard talk about that,” she says. “They would listen because I was quite earnest about the topic, and I really wanted them to get it.”

She attributes her interest in privacy to two things: her focus on workplace law, including rules about monitoring and searches by employers; and her hectic life as a lawyer and as a mother of four daughters. “I have very little personal time of my own,” she adds. “At its core, privacy is about freedom to grow as a person, which is a very important individual right in a democracy.”

In the College of Business, King teaches courses on legal issues in technology and e-business and on the business legal environment. She has written on topics such as Web access, sustainable buildings and employee monitoring.