ND Galli Law LLC

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ND Galli Law LLC

A woman-owned boutique law firm offering BigLaw experience with the nimbleness and efficiency of a small firm.

We work with a wide array of clients from individuals to emerging growth-oriented businesses, as well as larger and more established clients.

06/23/2026

The Defend Trade Secrets Act turned 10 years old last month. It was implemented against a rich history of state-level trade secrets law under both the common law and Uniform Trade Secrets Act, and was intended to, among other things, reflect and also harmonize the law.

On May 11, The Sedona Conference Working Group 12 on Trade Secrets published its Defend Trade Secrets Act Model Jury Instructions after three years of hard work. The jury instructions give courts and litigants a practical framework for navigating DTSA cases while also promoting greater uniformity in trade secret law.

The publication emerged from consensus-driven, multi-year collaboration through the Sedona Conference Working Group process, including meetings, drafting sessions, and a public comment period. Managing Member Nicole Galli served as a Senior Editor throughout the process.

IAM spoke with Nicole and other leading trade secrets lawyers for the Act’s Tenth Anniversary. Read their insights here: https://tinyurl.com/yjbymvcx

06/16/2026

The intersection of AI and intellectual property continues to grow more complicated, with the legal landscape trying to catch up.

This month's blog offers a closer look at these challenges, with Associates Kelley Bregenzer, Andrew Costa, and Alex Fernandez discussing the panels the firm’s attorneys participated in at the American Bar Association Intellectual Property Law’s annual spring conference. Here are a few highlights:

Trade Secrets and AI: When it comes to AI, companies need to be proactive in protecting their trade secrets by taking steps like vetting AI vendors, disabling model training, and adopting thoughtful governance practices for employees and third-party business partners.

AI, IP, Privacy and Data Protection: Technology like AI is dissolving the boundaries between areas of law. For example, now the same information could qualify as personal data, regulated information, trade secret material, proprietary business information, and AI training data simultaneously.

Copyright Roundup: This year, AI training has been the focus of multiple copyright disputes — Anthropic and Meta among those involved — centering on whether an AI developer's use of copyright protected works in training data counts as transformative fair use. Courts have shown receptivity to this, though market harm to copyright holders remains important in fair use analysis.

Read more of their takeaways in this month’s blog: https://tinyurl.com/mumwja66

06/09/2026

Why is there so much buzz around NIL now and why should intellectual property owners and practitioners care?

Managing Member Nicole Galli and Associate Alexandra Fernandez authored an article for The Legal Intelligencer exploring the United States Patent & Trademark Office’s (USPTO) recent efforts to educate the public on name, image, and likeness (“NIL”) protections.

In the last few months, the USPTO has hosted a presentation about it, launched a dedicated NIL website, and held a featured hour at the NFL Draft covering IP and NIL protections. Even though NIL first rose to prominence with college sports, the conversation surrounding it has expanded to influencers, public figures, and even regular people in some cases.

Especially now that the NCAA allows student athletes to commercialize their NILs, and with the rise of influencers and of course AI’s ability to mimic an individual's NIL, it is increasingly important that people be aware of their options to protect themselves, although they all have their limitations.

Options include contracts and state laws primarily designed to protect famous individuals, and federal trademark protection, which is only available when someone’s name or image is used as a “source identifier” for goods and services. Though these options are imperfect, they can be used effectively if the individual knows how to do so.

Read the article here: https://tinyurl.com/mrcxx2rb

06/02/2026

In April, Managing Member Nicole Galli once again joined a panel discussion on Key Considerations in Restrictive Covenant Litigation in 2026 at the Practicing Law Institute’s Fundamentals of Noncompetes 2026 in New York City. Here are some key takeaways:

The 2025 FTC decision on non-competes is no longer in effect. The law governing non-compete agreements continues to evolve, particularly as states take their own paths in restricting or, at times, broadening parties' rights to enforce such covenants. Individuals seeking to litigate these agreements should remain keenly aware of these changes — especially as early as the pleading stage.

Determining whether you can or should enforce a non-compete involves more than simply assessing whether it's enforceable. It is also important to also consider the effect non-competes will have on your employees and the court of public opinion.

Confidentiality agreements are a type of restrictive covenant — even without a non-compete, one must be careful not to read (and enforce) a confidentiality provision so broadly as to effectively bar an employee from taking any new employment with a competitor.

05/26/2026

Congratulations to Andrew Costa, who won *two* different awards this month recognizing his leadership in the profession!

These awards are well deserved, and we are so excited to celebrate Andrew’s achievements.

First, Andrew was named a 2026 Lawyer on the Fast Track by The Legal Intelligencer!

This award recognizes Attorneys under 40 from Pennsylvania and Delaware who have achieved early professional excellence in their careers and represent future leaders in the profession.

He will accept his award at a ceremony on June 11 at the Hilton at Penn's Landing in Philadelphia.

Andrew also received an award at the ABA-IPL Spring Conference in recognition of his outstanding leadership contributions to the IPL Section.

This year, Andrew has served as Vice Chair of the Copyright Legislation Committee and a Member of the Section’s Content Advisory Board.

05/19/2026

Managing Member Nicole Galli and Associates Kelley Bregenzer, Andrew Costa, and Alexandra Fernandez attended the annual ABA-IPL Spring Conference in Washington, D.C., from April 15-17.

Nicole, Kelley, and Andrew all participated in panels at the conference. Nicole hosted a panel titled Protecting Innovation: Trade Secrets in the Age of AI and Quantum Computing and Kelley hosted AI at the Intersection of IP, Privacy and Data Protection. Andrew spoke on a Copyright Roundup panel reviewing timely issues shaping U.S. Copyright Law. Stay tuned next month for a blog discussing the team’s takeaways.

In the meantime, here are just a few things we learned from the conference:

Trade secrets owners must learn about and consider the impact of the authorized — and unauthorized — use of GenAI and emerging technologies like Agentic AI and Quantum Computing on efforts to protect their trade secrets. Employee training is more important than ever in this area — but Agentic AI, which acts without human intervention, presents new challenges (and opportunities).

Traditional silos are dead, thanks to AI. AI has blurred the lines between intellectual property, privacy law, data protection, technology law, et cetera. Attorneys from different departments must work together early and often to create dependable AI governance plans for their clients.

Fair use — and particularly transformative fair use — remains the focal point of recent copyright litigation, not just in AI cases, but also in news reporting, social media, and cases of liability for service providers (ISPs). Though the doctrine is notoriously thorny, courts appear to be taking a more practical approach, focusing on what infringers are actually doing with the original work, and assessing whether the second work is a substitute for the original in the marketplace.

05/12/2026

What happens when legal professionals are trying to understand, regulate, and use AI, all at the same time?

Of Counsel Deanne Cevasco and AI Practice Lead, Head of Operations, and Of Counsel Nancy Saltzman attended the Sedona Conference Working Group 13 Annual Meeting 2026 from April 9-10. Deanne and Nancy joined colleagues to discuss issues at the intersection of AI and the Law.

Working Group 13 is currently dedicated to establishing consensus definitions, mapping applicable laws and regulations to identify gaps, and providing education to legal professionals and courts on current AI tools, while also developing its own AI tool to make it easier for users to search for and find Sedona publications. Deanne is part of the "AI and the Law Regulatory Crosswalk" drafting team within this Working Group.

One notable takeaway from the meeting came from a panel of judges, who were sympathetic to AI-related mistakes lawyers are making as the technology develops, but this leniency and patience will likely wane over time.

Read more of their conference takeaways in this month’s blog: https://tinyurl.com/m57cdwdx

05/05/2026

We are delighted to announce that Lars Emerson has joined ND Galli Law as an Associate.

Lars graduated from American University’s Washington College of Law in 2025. While in law school, Lars served as the Senior Forum Editor of the American University Law Review, a Research Assistant focused on Congress and legislative drafting for Prof. Bettina Poirier, and an active member of several student organizations.

Prior to law school, he worked in tech, government relations, and as an editor and in strategic roles for several news organizations. Lars will work on a variety of the firm’s intellectual property and litigation matters.

Welcome, Lars!

You can read more about Lars’ background and accomplishments here: https://ndgallilaw.com/lars-emerson/

04/28/2026

Managing Member Nicole Galli welcomes additional advisors with at least ten years of experience to her ProVisors group, Philadelphia 4. The group, which now has over 30 members, currently has spots open for immigration lawyers, tax accountants, insurance or employer benefit brokers, and others.

There are also a dozen other groups in the region, which is one of the fastest growing regions in the ProVisors network, if Nicole’s group is not a fit.

Contact Nicole at [email protected] for more information.

In case you missed it, also check out this profile of her on the ProVisors’ website, in which she discusses the value of her experience in ProVisors, as well as some reflections upon her journey as a lawyer and as an entrepreneur and insights on the importance of strong professional relationships.

You can read the article here: https://tinyurl.com/4czsucua

04/21/2026

What happens when a client asks generative AI for legal advice or input on work produced by the attorney working on their matter?

When clients use it before or during a legal dispute, they may create significant confidentiality issues, including the possibility that those communications lose the protections of attorney-client privilege and/or the work product doctrine, and could become discoverable.

In addition, in our experience, AI does not generally grasp important nuances in the law, nor does it have the wisdom of experience in parsing out persuasive arguments from losing arguments, among other things. For these reasons, among others, when a client sends AI-generated feedback or drafts to their attorney, it can also considerably increase legal fees — rather than reduce them as many clients anticipate — since the attorney now needs to spend time explaining why the AI advice is not applicable to the client’s legal matter.

On the blog this month, Associate Kelley Bregenzer and Of Counsel Nancy Saltzman discuss two recent legal cases examining how clients and attorneys are using these tools and key considerations for attorneys and clients when clients use generative AI in legal matters.

Read it here: https://tinyurl.com/y3zday5s

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