PROGRAM OVERVIEW

Americans store a vast amount of digital data online in the course of ordinary life, including photos, text messages, and emails. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) allows the living to use that data when someone has died to create a digital clone or avatar. The fidelity with which the deceased may be reproduced is eerie, and users may have a completely interactive and immersive experience in augmented reality with a digital being that has inherited the features and idiosyncrasies of the dead. It is now possible for someone to continue a digital relationship with their dead best friend. The market for digital resurrection is particularly robust in China, where a dozen companies offer this technology to the public for less than $500.

Several high-profile figures have made it clear that they do not wish to be resurrected through technology. And while such a request included in a testamentary instrument may be ethically binding, the issue is whether it will be (or should be) interpreted as legally binding. There is no legal or regulatory landscape against which to estate plan to protect those who would avoid digital resurrection, and few privacy rights for the deceased. The law has failed to keep pace with technology, and the stakes are high. Professor Haneman presents her research on the law of digital resurrection, along with a paradigm for developing the law in this area centers death and applies the existing and idiosyncratic law of the dead.

Victoria J. Haneman joined the University of Georgia School of Law in the fall of 2025 as the holder of the Verner F. Chaffin Chair in Fiduciary Law.

Haneman comes to UGA from Creighton University, where she was a member of the law school’s faculty for seven years. In 2023, she was appointed the associate dean for research and innovation. She also held the Frank J. Kellegher Professorship of Trusts & Estates and served as the interim director of the health law program for the 2023-24 academic year.

Specializing in taxation, wills, trusts and estates, and business associations, Haneman has published extensively in flagship and specialty law reviews, including the Boston College Law Review, the Wisconsin Law Review, the North Carolina Law Review, the Wake Forest Law Review, the Harvard Journal on Legislation and the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law. She has also co-authored four books, including Planning for Large Estates; Questions & Answers: Wills, Trusts, and Estates, 4th ed.; Federal Taxes of Gratuitous Transfers: Law & Planning, 2d ed.; and Making Tax Law.

Haneman has a particular interest in tax policy, death care services, industry disruption, emerging markets, and women and the law. She frequently provides expert commentary to leading media outlets such as PBS NewsHour, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, Washington Post, the Associated Press, National Public Radio and Bloomberg.

A recipient of several scholarship and teaching awards, Haneman has held leadership positions in the Women in Legal Education, Trust and Estates, and the Aging and the Law sections of the Association of American Law Schools. She is also an Academic Fellow in the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel.

One Education Credit for CLE (PA Only), Insurance (PA Only), CFP, CPA (PA Only), PACE and CTFA will be offered.

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