Jason H. Raff
Legal Clerk
Jason is a non-traditional law student with broad and diverse professional experience in leadership, training, project management, language services, policymaking, the performing arts, and concert production.
Jason has a keen interest in intellectual property, with special focus on trademarks, copyright, entertainment, publishing, and publicity. As a law clerk for Gray Ice Higdon, Jason works closely with the trademark, litigation, and business groups drafting pleadings, briefs, office action responses, and memoranda, researching special topics, and interacting with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the U.S. Copyright Office.
Jason has consistently performed at the top of his class at the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville and has won Excellence for the Future Awards for highest class grade in International Law & Intellectual Property and Professional Responsibility from the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction. Jason is currently a second-year member of the Louisville Law Review, where he wrote about the intersection of publicity rights of tattooed celebrities and the copyrights of tattoo artists. He is also representing UofL in the 2023 Saul Lefkowitz Trademark Moot Court Competition.
Jason has an entrepreneurial spirit and seeks to discover creative solutions to clients’ needs. At Brandeis, Jason founded the Legal Interpreting Internship, an interdisciplinary initiative between the UofL School of Modern Languages and the Ackerson Domestic Violence and Mediation Law Clinic. In the internship’s pilot semester in the Fall of 2022, Jason trained an undergraduate student from the UofL Spanish department to provide interpreting and translation services during conferences between student attorneys of the Ackerson Clinic and their Spanish-speaking clients. Jason is also currently developing a first-of-its-kind Copyright Clinic at Brandeis to provide opportunities for student attorneys to represent claimants before the newly formed Copyright Claims Board.
Prior to attending law school, Jason was a manager at the corporate headquarters of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), where he developed the denomination’s translation and interpreting services program from the ground up. For nearly a decade, Jason was a staff Spanish-English certified court interpreter for the Kentucky Court of Justice, where he provided language access to limited English-speaking individuals in high-stake criminal, civil, and family court proceedings. In that role, Jason created the Office of Translations Services to translate standard court forms and bench orders into commonly encountered languages, and researched and co-wrote Part IX of the Kentucky Administrative Procedures of the Court governing language access policy in the courtroom. Jason has also interpreted in Federal Court in the Western District of Kentucky and prepared legal and business translations for Fortune 500 companies, foreign governments, and international law enforcement agencies.
Jason is also a passionate classical musician, having obtained dual degrees from Indiana University in Spanish and cello performance. Music has always been a part of his life. In 2015, Jason led the artistic and financial revival of the Louisville Civic Orchestra, Louisville’s oldest continuously operating community orchestra (est. 1915). As the Civic Orchestra’s artistic director, Jason raised public awareness of this historical icon, conducted rehearsals and concerts of the orchestra, led artistic programming, engaged guest artists, and produced complex concert collaborations, most notably a WFPK Waterfront Wednesday concert featuring the Louisville Civic Orchestra and the band Jukebox the Ghost.
Jason’s diverse linguistic and interdisciplinary background enables him to communicate effectively with a broad cross-section of clientele. He is equally at ease discussing IP strategy with C-suite executives as he is talking shop with performing artists and creatives. As a future lawyer, Jason looks forward to helping artists, performers, creators, athletes, and entrepreneurs protect their intellectual property, brands, and images.
Jason is fluent in English with near-native fluency in Spanish (minimum 16th grade proficiency). He is a Certified Court Interpreter in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and an American Translators Association Certified Translator.