STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: Fernando Montoya
March 3, 2020
Technology has the innate ability to improve people’s lives, especially their health. But when analyzing its impact on privacy, 2L Fernando Montoya finds it important to think through the implications technology, like data collection, can have.
“The use of this information has great potential in providing better healthcare,” Montoya said. “I think it is imperative to find a balance between regulating the safe use and protection of data with encouraging innovation.”
As a research assistant for AUWCL Health Law and Policy Program director, Professor Lindsey F. Wiley, Montoya to explore the relationship between health law and his work before law school — Montoya served as a technical research associate at The Joint Commission and as technology coordinator for Kramer Financial Group after graduating from Illinois State University in 2014.
We spoke to Montoya about his research as a junior staffer on American University Law Review (AULR), and how it has impacted his legal perspective.
How did you get involved with AULR? What’s your role?
I wanted another avenue to bolster my research and writing skills. These are both focal points for AULR, whether it is through writing my own Comment or consistent evaluation and research of the pieces that our journal publishes. Building a larger legal network was also important to me since I was new to the D.C. area. AULR has provided a great network of successful alumni all around the country.
I’m currently a junior staffer for American University Law Review and was fortunate enough to be selected to serve as our managing editor for Volume 70. As a junior staffer, I wrote a Comment, helped spade interesting pieces by many different scholars around the country and got the opportunity to bond with my fellow classmates through a lot of different social events around D.C.
What’s your Comment on? How did you come across the topic?
I researched one of the newest genetic modification techniques—CRISPR-Cas9—and explored whether parents should have a fundamental constitutional right to use the technique on embryos. This technology essentially gives us the power to remove or modify deleterious genes to cure any type of illness. Because CRISPR works on embryos, it can essentially eradicate any disease form your future child and all of their offspring. While this technology concerns reproductive rights and parental decisions, it created a grey area because it had intergenerational implications and didn’t quite fall within any of the current rights established by the Supreme Court.
A majority of my best friends from home are biology majors and repeatedly talked about CRISPR and the astronomical leaps it was making in the scientific field. Being a political science and history major, I could never quite keep up with them and decided that the best way to learn was to force myself to write my Comment on it. [Read Montoya’s Comment here]
How has AULR impacted your legal perspective? What's one key skill you've developed through your experience?
Journal has certainly expanded it. AULR is a general subject-matter journal, so we publish scholar and student pieces that cover any area of the law. I’ve helped work on pieces spanning many subjects like international law, race relations, prison reform, tax law, and the #MeToo movement. This exposure has helped me learn about aspects of the law that I may not have been exposed to otherwise.
Being a member of AULR has helped me develop my writing, analytical, and interpersonal skills. The Comment writing process really helped me craft my voice as a writer and pushed my researching skills more than anything had before.
How do intend to use your law degree?
I intend to practice in the healthcare data privacy space. With the proliferation of data collection by large companies, all kinds of information—whether healthcare-related or not—can be used in ways that affect the healthcare people receive.
What advice would you give to folks going through the Journal Competition write-on process?
Regardless of what journal you end up on, the benefits (writing experience, networking, resume building) are worth giving up the week of spring break.