BRENDA R. SHARTON

Brenda Sharton is a partner in the Boston office of Goodwin Procter LLP. A member of the firm’s Executive Committee, Ms. Sharton also co-chairs the firm's Business Litigation and Privacy & Data Security Practices. She has a national litigation and counseling practice in the areas of business litigation, financial services, privacy, trade secrets and intellectual property. Ms. Sharton spends much of her time advising and representing corporations, their senior executives and boards of directors in complex business litigation matters. After graduating first in her class from Boston College Law School and completing an appellate clerkship, she joined the firm in 1991 and was elected to the partnership in 1997.

WORK FOR CLIENTS

Ms. Sharton has extensive experience in all manner of commercial and business litigation, internal investigations and civil regulatory matters including those involving contract, banking and trust, securities, business tort, breach of fiduciary duty, financial fraud, minority shareholder and partnership disputes, data privacy and security, hedge fund litigation, ERISA litigation, trademark, copyright, trade secret misappropriation and non-compete claims. She has successfully tried cases to conclusion in federal and state courts as well as represented clients in the full range of ADR procedures. In addition to trial work, Ms. Sharton has handled investigations and civil enforcement actions brought by an alphabet soup of federal and state regulators, including the SEC, IRS, FDIC, FINRA, DOL, FDA, HUD, NASD, OTS and OCC.

Recent representative cases include the landmark Patco v. People’s United Bank case in federal court in Maine, which involved an alleged breach of the bank’s online security system through keylogging malware. This case is one of the first of its kind in the nation and was named a “national case to watch” by the American Banker.  In addition to her privacy work, Ms. Sharton recently obtained an outright win on summary judgment in a federal court case involving claims of trade secret misappropriation and breach of contract/fiduciary duty in which the damages claimed were in excess of $100 million; the successful resolution of a $1 billion claim against a Fortune 50 client for breach of fiduciary and financial fraud claims; the successful resolution of a $35 million claim for interference with an acquisition; and the successful resolution of civil claims related to the Bernard L. Madoff Securities fraud.  Her recent work also includes representation of a public company in connection with a major data security breach; an internal investigation involving a revenue recognition issue at the Japanese subsidiary of a public company; an internal investigation of a public company subsidiary faced with a data security breach; the successful defense of a major mutual fund company in connection with SEC and FDIC investigations; and the successful negotiation and resolution of a consumer financial services class action case against a Fortune 50 company that had been pending for over 10 years.

In the financial services area, Ms. Sharton has represented major financial institutions in litigation and regulatory matters including Bank of America, Countrywide, State Street, Citigroup, Citizens, IBT, GE Capital, Marsh & McLennan, Putnam, Fifth Third and Edward Jones, as well as numerous bankers' trade associations including the American Bankers Association and the Massachusetts Bankers Association.

In the intellectual property area, she has represented major corporations (including Hill Holliday, IPG, New Balance and Eastman Kodak), as well as start-ups, in disputes involving products ranging from computer operating system architecture to mailpost designs and hockey sticks and has handled all related claims including copyright, trademark and trade dress infringement as well as trade secret misappropriation.

MEDIA

Ms. Sharton's recent presentations include: “Consumer Tracking and Class Action Lawsuits:  Are You at Risk?”  presented at the IAPP Privacy Academy (2012); Hot Topics in Privacy Law for Tech Companies, Palo Alto, CA, October 10, 2012;  Privacy Law Salon, Miami, FL (January 2011); “Banks as Guarantors? Casting Blame for Cybercriminal Activity” presented at the IAPP Privacy Academy (2010); “Hot Legal Issues Related to the Financial Services Meltdown,” (CLE, January 2009); “The Risks of E-Mail Communications,” an ABA webinar presented to 400 members of the Business Law Section of the American Bar Association (2006; also for New York CLE presentations); “The Attorney-Client Privilege in a Highly Regulated Environment,” New York CLE presentations (2005, 2006); “Hot Topics in Financial Services: What To Do When the Regulators Call,” for the American Corporate Counsel Association (2005); and “Massachusetts Bankers Association, et al. v. Bowler, Insurance Preemption Litigation: Paving the Way for Banks to Sell Insurance in Massachusetts,” for the Massachusetts Bankers Association (2003).

Ms. Sharton has written articles for numerous publications, including "Parsing the Madoff Matter," Boston Business Journal (January 2009); “The Risks of E-Mail Communication" ABA's Business Law Today (September/October 2007); “How Do the New Rules on Electronic Discovery Affect You?,” Goodwin Procter's Financial Services Client Alert (December 2006); “Dramatic Changes to Discovery Rules,” Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly (April 2004); “Online Privacy Protection,” The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel (October 2001); “Privacy: The Next Frontier in Online Regulation?,” Boston Bar Journal (March 2001); “Domain Name Disputes: To Sue or Not to Sue,” Boston Bar Journal (September 2000); and “What's in a (dot.com) Name?” Boston Business Journal (March 2000).

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

For several years Ms. Sharton was an adjunct professor of law at Boston College Law School. In addition to teaching a “Technology Litigation Practice” course, she also began teaching a “Cyberlaw Litigation” course in 2000, years before that topic became a standard area of legal study. She currently co-chairs the Board of Directors for the Victim Rights Law Center. Prior to joining Goodwin Procter, Ms. Sharton served as a law clerk to Justice Joseph R. Nolan of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court from 1990-1991.

BAR AND COURT ADMISSIONS

A member of the Massachusetts state bar, Ms. Sharton is admitted before the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First, Second and Fourth Circuits, the U.S. Tax Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition, Ms. Sharton has litigated cases in the courts of California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas and Washington state.

RECOGNITION

Ms. Sharton has been selected for inclusion in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business. For the past five consecutive years, Ms. Sharton has been named in Boston magazine as a “Massachusetts Super Lawyer” in the area of business litigation. Ms. Sharton continues to be  named in the Super Lawyers listing of the “Top 50 Female Lawyers in Massachusetts” and recommended for her financial services litigation work by Legal 500 US 2012. Ms Sharton received the Boston College Public Interest Law Foundation Curtin Award for Public Service in 2012. In 2004, she received the Annual Shining Star Award from the Victim Rights Law Center (VRLC) in Boston for her pro bono work on behalf of rape victims. In addition to her own work, she has supervised more than 25 Goodwin Procter attorneys who have donated more than 1,200 hours to the VRLC. Ms. Sharton currently co-chairs the Board of Directors of the Victim Rights Law Center.

While at Boston College Law School, Ms. Sharton served as an editor of the Boston College Law Review.