Profile Summary 

Cynthia S. Arato is a founding partner of Shapiro Arato LLP, a premier litigation boutique in New York City. Cynthia’s practice focuses on intellectual property, media and entertainment, and commercial litigation. She has successfully represented major corporations and prominent individuals in copyright, trademark, defamation, the right of publicity, false advertising, employment, contract, fraud, fiduciary duty, and royalty actions. Cynthia regularly advises clients on a wide range of intellectual property matters, including trademark and right of publicity issues related to advertisements and products, and she has particular expertise in prosecuting and defending complex copyright class actions. This past May, she won summary judgment in a precedent-setting fair use case in which the Southern District of New York held that the artist Drake fairly sampled a 1982 spoken word recording in his song “Pound Cake/Paris Morton Music 2” because he transformed the message conveyed by the original work. In June, Cynthia was awarded Best in Media & Entertainment at the sixth annual Euromoney Legal Media Group Americas Women in Business Law Awards. Previously, Cynthia was lead trial counsel for the Select Committee of Inquiry formed by the House of Representatives in Connecticut in connection with impeachment proceedings related to Governor John G. Rowland, winning a landmark ruling from that State’s highest court leading to the Governor’s resignation from office.

Before co-founding Shapiro Arato LLP, Cynthia was a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, and at other firms of national reputation, including the boutique litigation firm of Parcher, Hayes & Snyder.

Cynthia’s clients include leading entertainment and media companies, major record companies, and artists and writers in the entertainment industry.