James D. Barger

James D. Barger is an associate lawyer at Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis & Overholtz, PLLC, in Pensacola, Florida, and is licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Currently, his practice focuses on mass torts, including defective pharmaceutical products and BP oil spill litigation.

Mr. Barger earned his law degree at the Temple University Beasley School of Law in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he participated in trial advocacy and legal research & writing programs ranked among the nation's best. During law school, he was a staff member for the Temple Political & Civil Rights Law Review. Mr. Barger was one of the founding staff members of the law school's student-run newspaper, Temple Prima Facie, serving as a writer and, later, as Editor-in-Chief. He also worked in clinical programs at the Bucks County District Attorney, representing the Commonwealth at preliminary hearings, and at the SEPTA Tort Litigation Division, representing one of the nation's largest transit systems in arbitration hearings at Philadelphia's Court of Common Pleas.

Before becoming a lawyer, Mr. Barger held several positions in information technology, including manager, project lead, e-commerce programmer, database designer, and Microsoft-certified technology trainer. Prior to that, Mr. Barger was a newspaper editor and reporter. He earned his undergraduate degree in journalism at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida.

Mr. Barger's article on "Extending Free Speech Rights Into Virtual Worlds," was published in the summer 2010 issue of SciTech Lawyer magazine. The article explores how the law is applied to new technology environments, like the virtual world known as "Second Life."

Speech issues pervade virtual worlds. The most talked-about virtual world, Linden Laboratories' Second Life, is all about expression. There is no game, no objective or goal, no score, and there are few rules. For most participants, the ability to express oneself is the main draw of Second Life. . . . In this new world, long-established property law and state constitutions may provide the best protection for a user's right to express himself in sometimes controversial ways.

James D. Barger, "Extending Free Speech Rights Into Virtual Worlds," SciTech Lawyer, Summer 2010.