Nicole Hyland

Nicole Hyland is counsel to the Litigation Group and Professional Responsibility Group at Frankfurt Kurnit. Her practice focuses primarily on legal ethics, professional responsibility, and legal malpractice.  Ms. Hyland counsels lawyers and law firms on conflicts of interest, legal fee disputes, escrow issues, disqualification motions, multijurisdictional law practice, business transactions with clients, lateral transitions, law firm formation and break-ups, advertising and social media use, and other professional responsibility issues. Ms. Hyland also represents defendants and plaintiffs in legal malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty disputes.

In addition to her legal ethics and professional responsibility practice, Ms. Hyland has an active litigation practice, focusing on art, literature, and entertainment industry disputes.  She handles copyright, trademark, right of publicity, and defamation claims, as well as disputes over financing, production, distribution, and talent agreements.  She counsels art, literature, and entertainment industry clients on content issues, including copyright, trademark, right of publicity, television formatting rights, privacy, defamation, and fair use.

Ms. Hyland is Chair of the Committee on Professional Ethics of the New York City Bar Association (NYCBA), where – as a member – she helped write ethics opinions concerning the use of social media and jury research, duties to prospective clients, and the proper handling of inadvertently produced documents.  She is also Co-Chair, along with Judge Barbara Jaffe, of the Ethics Committee of the New York Women’s Bar Association (NYWBA) and Vice-Chair of the Ethics Committee of the Media Law Resource Center (MLRC).  Ms. Hyland is a member of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (APRL), American Bar Association (ABA), New York State Bar Association, NYCBA, NYWBA, and MLRC.

Ms. Hyland writes and lectures frequently on legal ethics and professional responsibility issues.  She contributes to the Legal Ethics Forum blog (www.legalethicsforum.com).

Ms. Hyland graduated with honors from Fordham University School of Law in 2002 (Cum Laude, Order of the Coif) where she was Notes and Articles Editor on the Fordham Law Review.  She earned her Bachelor’s Degree from Columbia University in 1990.