Copyright Office Welcomes New Ringer Fellow

The U.S. Copyright Office is pleased to announce that Heather Walters has joined the Office as a fellow (2022–2024) in the Barbara A. Ringer Copyright Honors Program. She started her two-year appointment in August and will work with multiple departments within the Copyright Office, including the Office of the General Counsel, Office of Policy and International Affairs, Office of Public Information and Education, and Office of Registration Policy and Practice.

Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter appointed Walters after a competitive application and interview process. The program—named for Barbara A. Ringer, who served as Register from 1973 to 1980—offers promising early-career copyright lawyers an opportunity to work on a variety of advanced legal and policy issues. “Heather has an impressive range of experience and is passionate about copyright law,” Perlmutter said. “I’m delighted to have her join us and contribute to our many legal activities.”

Walters earned her law degree from The George Washington University Law School in 2022. She was a board member of the Art Law and Entertainment Society and a member of the Student Intellectual Property Association and the Tech Law Students Association. During law school, Walters interned with the U.S. House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet and clerked in the Copyright Office’s Office of the General Counsel. She earned her master of arts in English from Georgetown University and her bachelor of science in political science from the University of Central Florida.

The Copyright Office launched the Ringer Honors Program in 2013. It offers eighteen- to twenty-four-month paid fellowships to attorneys who are no more than five years out of law school and have a strong record of achievement and demonstrated interest in copyright law. For more information, please visit the Ringer Fellowship webpage.