Nicole I. Hyland, Esq.
Nicole Hyland is a partner in 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 attorneys 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). In that role, she oversees the City Bar’s ethics hotline, which provides ethical guidance to lawyers from all over New York State. She also oversees the drafting of informal and formal ethics opinions on a variety of topics, including: non-refundable flat fee arrangements, the use of Professional Employer Organizations by law firms, the ethics of using a virtual law office, ethical guidelines for accepting credit cards, and business arrangements between law firms and nonlegal organizations.
Ms. Hyland serves as Co-Chair for the Ethics Committees of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York (WBASNY) and the New York Women’s Bar Association (NYWBA) – WBASNY’s New York City chapter. For the past two years she has hosted the NYWBA annual meeting at Frankfurt Kurnit followed by an Ethics CLE program for NYWBA members and attendees.
Ms. Hyland serves on the Board of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (APRL) and is a member of the New York State Bar Association Committee for Standards on Attorney Conduct (COSAC). She is also a member of the American Bar Association’s Center for Professional Responsibility.
Ms. Hyland writes and lectures frequently on legal ethics and professional responsibility issues. She recently joined Professor Roy Simon as a co-author on his seminal treatise: Simon’s New York Rules of Professional Conduct Annotated (2015 ed.). She is on the editorial board of the New York Legal Ethics Reporter and contributes to the Legal Ethics Forum blog.
Follow Nicole on Twitter @NiHyland, connect with her on LinkedIn, “Like” her Facebook page, or view her documents on JD Supra.
