Nathan represents media clients in First Amendment, intellectual property, and entertainment law cases in trial and appellate courts throughout the country. Additionally, he provides pre-broadcast and pre-publication counseling to a wide range of print and web publishers, television networks, and film producers.
Over the past decade, Nathan has represented either the broadcast media or the video game industry in every major case that tests the publicity rights of athletes in video games and television sports broadcasts. He has successfully represented multiple major media clients such as ABC News, CBS News, and ESPN in defamation lawsuits, often brought by celebrity or political personalities.
His entertainment practice includes representing producers and broadcasters of reality television programs such as Dog the Bounty Hunter and Wife Swap in the defense of right of publicity lawsuits, as well as the producers of award-winning documentaries like NY Med and Under the Gun. Nathan also regularly defends the news media against government efforts to curtail or punish journalism, including advising The Guardian concerning its reporting about documents released by WikiLeaks, defending New York Times, Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, and Baltimore Sun journalists resisting subpoenas for confidential sources, and obtaining access to information for news organizations in high-profile criminal matters such as the trial of “Scooter” Libby. Nathan has also litigated numerous copyright and trademark disputes, including successfully defending ABC News in several novel lawsuits testing the limits of doctrines such as fair use and equitable estoppel.
Chambers USA has reported that Nathan has been praised for having “one of the most impressive legal minds I’ve ever encountered” and being “the ideal guy to go to with a complicated question that looks impossible to answer.” Indeed, Best Lawyers has reported that “Nathan marries an encyclopedic knowledge of the law with a practical, client-friendly approach to each matter.” Nathan is a past President of the Defense Counsel Section of the Media Law Resource Center, the largest national organization of media defense counsel, and is a member of the Governing Committee of the ABA Forum on Communications Law.
Nathan is resident in the firm’s Washington, DC office, and also regularly practices from the firm’s New York office.
