Each year, Law360 names practice area “MVPs” as “an elite group of attorneys who are leaders in their practice areas and have seen extraordinary wins in the past year.”  This year, for the second year in a row, Law360 recognized partner Tom Hentoff among its five Media & Entertainment MVPs.

In his interview with Law360, Tom discussed Williams & Connolly’s clients’ victories over the last year, including a win in the Southern District of New York over a rebroadcast streaming service, which Williams & Connolly successfully argued had infringed the copyrighted material of its media company clients by streaming the companies’ television stations.

Tom also discussed how he became interested in media law, noting that one of his earliest fair use copyright cases essentially constituted “a fascinating self-taught course on . . . the history of copyright law in the United States,” which has changed markedly over the years. 

Tom serves as co-chair of Williams & Connolly’s Trademark and Copyright and First Amendment and Media practice groups.  His practice is concentrated in intellectual property disputes, First Amendment and media law, and complex civil litigation.  Tom has represented clients in a wide variety of copyright, trademark, trade secret, defamation, privacy, false-advertising, and class action litigation and counseling matters.  Chambers USA highlighted one client's description of Tom as “brilliant, extremely diligent and fantastic when it comes to new media and technology issues” and has quoted another as stating: “He would be on my dream team of lawyers.”

Click here to read Tom’s Law360 2021 Media & Entertainment MVP profile.