Michelle Cooke

Michelle A. Cooke joined ArentFox Schiff LLP in 2022 to co-lead the firm's media and entertainment practice. A longtime IP practitioner, she said that early in her career she didn't know which area to make her focus.

Today, she's helping head up ArentFox's new AI/Web3 IP protection group, a role that has her at the forefront of what's arguably the legal field's hottest current specialty.

For national and international clients, she negotiates licensing, distribution, development agreements and structures, guidelines, and internal policies to govern the creation and use of IP, social media activity, user-generated content, and personal data.

"I was at a different firm's San Francisco office in the '90s, a place that is now closed but that in those days let me try different things, and I looked at employment law, securities, bankruptcy restructuring -- but I felt like Goldilocks, nothing was quite right," Cooke said, referring to Graham & James LLP, which shuttered in 2000. "Then I heard that IP would be the wave of the future because it would become many companies' most valuable asset and the law would be unable to keep up. That appealed to me because the law in other areas seemed pretty much fixed. I decided on IP."

At first, her firm said no. "Back then, IP leaned heavily on patents and I had no tech background. I was an English major. But one partner said that if I would consider a move from the glory of San Francisco to the cesspool that was L.A., I could be a junior IP litigator. I'd never even been to L.A., but I checked it out and I've never looked back."

As recently as 2022, the big IP challenges involved the metaverse and digital rights. Now, artificial intelligence is the major trend that has companies seeking Cooke's counsel. "It's the most dynamic area of the law right now," she said.

One current client, which Cooke declined to name, reflects the unsettled nature of IP protection issues. The company operates a repository and management services for the online storage of digital video content in the adult entertainment space. "What are my client's obligations as to civil and criminal issues arising from computer generated images," Cooke said. "The questions are especially important as image manipulation also begins appearing in the political context as the election season gets rolling."

The client required Cooke's evaluation and analysis in deciding whether to take on a lucrative new customer. "It's true, the law has not kept pace with the technology," she said. "And as I'd hoped, it's never boring."

-- John Roemer