Gina Durham

San Francisco
Gina Durham is a first-chair trial lawyer with a focus on high-profile trademark, trade dress and copyright litigation across the nation, representing some of the world's leading companies.
Also the vice chair of DLA Piper's U.S. intellectual property and technology practice, her involvement in generative AI matters began last year when she represented a renowned model developer, but her expertise extends well beyond this recent surge, having worked with clients on legal issues fundamental to earlier types of AI.
"I have practiced in copyright for over 25 years, and I was lucky enough to litigate some of the earliest webscraping disputes, which originally arose more than a decade ago," Durham said. "With copyright and webscraping issues now at the forefront of many legal disputes over how AI models are trained and how content is created, working on AI matters felt like a natural extension of my skillset."
Now, she is a trusted advisor to major companies, guiding them on how to mitigate risks associated with deploying enterprise AI solutions. At DLA Piper, she is part of an AI practice that combines legal subject matter experts with data scientists to deeply understand client use cases and provide practical advice.
In the face of uncertainties surrounding AI legislation and pending lawsuits, Durham finds it rewarding to work with sophisticated client teams to strike a commercially reasonable balance. She said this approach allows clients to harness the benefits of generative AI while establishing strategic guardrails to limit risk. Her work is at the forefront of navigating the complex legal landscape of AI, ensuring that clients can innovate responsibly and confidently.
"In the past year, I have also had the honor of working with a major LLM developer regarding a submission made to the U.S. Copyright Office in connection with the office's study regarding copyright issues raised by generative AI," Durham said.
She also noted that the primary obstacle of working in the AI space is the pace at which the technology and use cases are evolving.
"But this is also what makes it such an exciting area. Reading and thinking deeply out these issues is the only way to overcome these obstacles and get to a level where you can be really helpful to clients," Durham said.
When asked about anticipated trends within AI, she said there will be inconsistent litigation outcomes and continued uncertainty as to where regulation is headed. This means that companies who deploy enterprise solutions will continue to need the most sophisticated legal advice to navigate these uncertainties.
"Those market players interested in training and further developing their AI models may look to licensing deals as a way to mitigate the litigation risks that have arisen from scraping large amounts of content from the web," she said. "I also anticipate regulators are going to be tuned into disclosures around use of AI, which creates complicated questions for companies around when an obligation to disclose arises."