Michael W. Carroll is a Professor of Law and Director of the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University's Washington College of Law. Carroll is one of the founding Board Members of Creative Commons, a not-for-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative work available for others to legally build upon and share. He also is a member of the Board of Directors of the Public Library of Science PLOS and served on the National Academy of Sciences' Board on Research Data and Information from 2008 to 2013.
Carroll's scholarly work focuses on intellectual property law and the law of electronic commerce. Carroll also is an active advocate for open access to the peer-reviewed scholarly periodical literature. He has written and lectured on the subject, and he is the author of the SPARC Author's Addendum. He currently serves on the Advisory Board of the National Security Law Brief.
Professor Carroll received his A.B. from the University of Chicago and his J.D. magna cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center. While in law school, he was the Editor-in-Chief of the American Criminal Law Review.
After law school Carroll worked as an associate attorney at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering for about a year. Subsequently Carroll clerked for US District Court Judge Joyce Hens Green and D.C. Circuit Judge Judith W. Rogers. He returned to Wilmer to practice in the intellectual property and e-commerce areas. He began his teaching career in 2001 at the Villanova University School of Law.