CDAS Brings in Partner Carole E. Handler and Associate Brianna Dahlberg to expand its West Coast Litigation, Entertainment and IP practice

owan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard LLP is expanding its West Coast litigation, entertainment, and intellectual property practice with the strategic hire of a two-person litigation team, led by Carole E. Handler, who joins the firm as a partner in CDAS’s Beverly Hills office as of April 1, 2017.

Ms. Handler is a nationally recognized litigator on copyright, trademark, entertainment, and antitrust cases.  She has handled numerous groundbreaking cases throughout her career, representing clients in the motion picture, telecom, fashion, sports, and other industries on matters involving entertainment, copyright, competition, and new media.

Her work includes representing clients in the motion picture industry in complex copyright and antitrust litigation. Widely known as “the lawyer who saved Spider-Man,” Carole represented Marvel Entertainment Company for over a decade in copyright and other litigation, and was responsible for the trial strategy that allowed Marvel to recover the motion picture rights to its iconic Spider-Man property.  In representing Pfizer, she was one of the lead attorneys who succeeded in having the then-largest trademark verdict in history reversed.  But perhaps one of the cases of which she is most proud involves her work on a nine-week pro bono jury trial for a Holocaust survivor to recover the rights to her life story, which is now being developed into a motion picture.

Carole has successfully represented major motion picture producers and distributors in litigation involving antitrust and copyright issues and continues to support her clients’ efforts as new media revolutionizes traditional ways of reaching consumers. Carole also handles infringement claims for a number of fashion clients, for which copyright is an increasingly crucial issue. Carole regularly submits amicus briefs on copyright and antitrust issues in the Second, Third, Sixth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits, as well as the Supreme Court, and California courts.

She has also been an adjunct professor at USC law school for over 13 years, where she has taught both antitrust and IP courses.

“Carole’s practice is perfectly synergetic with CDAS’s litigation practice in New York, which also centers on IP, media, and entertainment disputes,” explains Eleanor M. Lackman, co-chair of CDAS’s Litigation Group.  “She helps us take the strong practice that we have built on the East Coast and replicate that type of focus and service on the West Coast, which provides a major benefit for our clients across the country.”

Carole was immediately drawn to CDAS by the firm’s commitment to strategic growth in key industry sectors, which allows it to serve a wide variety of clients, its openness to new approaches, and its focus on important media issues, which are central to her practice. “In addition to the superior quality of CDAS’s nationally recognized attorneys, its dedication to innovative legal thinking, the depth of its IP practice and its focus on copyright and media – it is also the unusual firm that has a real commitment to internal development and gender diversity equality and practices it.”  Carole notes that the majority of CDAS’s equity partners are women.

Joining Carole is Brianna Dahlberg, an associate who has worked with Carole since 2011 and has extensive trial and pretrial experience in entertainment, IP, and contractual matters.  Both Carole and Brianna join from Eisner Jaffe, which they joined from Lathrop & Gage.