Ciara McHale represents companies in intellectual property and business disputes.  Her practice focuses on copyright, trademark, trade secret, unfair competition, and commercial litigation matters for clients in the internet, digital media, beauty and wellness, and software industries. Ciara handles disputes at all stages, including pre-litigation dispute resolution, intellectual property enforcement and protection, discovery, dispositive motions, and trial.

Ciara also counsels clients on a wide variety of legal issues, including intellectual property protection and enforcement, consumer protection and privacy laws and policies, secondary liability for online service providers, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), anonymous speech on the Internet, and right of publicity.  

Prior to joining Tyz Law Group, Ciara practiced in the Intellectual Property & Commercial Litigation Group at Fenwick & West LLP for six years where she represented technology companies in complex litigation, including a case where she defended a major Internet service provider against claims of secondary liability for copyright infringement in a federal jury trial. She also obtained summary judgment for a digital music streaming platform accused of direct and contributory copyright infringement by a record label. Ciara also frequently represented technology and Internet companies in trademark infringement actions, obtaining summary judgment for one client on all of plaintiff’s claims on laches grounds.

Ciara also has a passion for taking on high-impact pro bono matters to help underrepresented parties and non-profits and advance important legal issues.  She also values pursuing justice in these and other important areas both in her practice and beyond it.

Ciara received a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was a member of the Berkeley Law Mock Trial Team and served as Co-Chair of the Berkeley Law Board of Advocates and on the Editorial Board of the Berkeley Technology Law Journal.  She also served as a judicial extern to the Honorable Ronald M. Whyte for the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. She also received her B.A. in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley.

EDUCATION

• J.D., University of California, Berkeley, 2013 – American Jurisprudence Award, Evidence; Prosser Prize in Written & Oral Advocacy, Constitutional Law, and Family Law

• B.A., with distinction, Rhetoric, University of California, Berkeley, 2009

BAR MEMBERSHIP

• Member of the State Bars of California and Illinois

• Admitted to the United States District Courts for the Northern and Central Districts of California

• Admitted to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois

• Admitted to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas

• Admitted to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit