Andrew H. Schapiro

In a career spanning three decades, Andy Schapiro has obtained precedent-setting victories for major companies and individuals in trials and appeals concerning data privacy, copyright, and a broad range of complex commercial disputes.  He also has obtained numerous acquittals at trial and reversals on appeal for individuals charged with crimes.  Andy’s skills as an advocate have earned him recognition as a “superstar” among appellate lawyers by Legal 500 United States and as a repeat winner of The American Lawyer’s “Litigator of the Week” award.

Tech and communications companies regularly turn to Andy to handle high-stakes copyright litigation.  His successes include winning a milestone victory for YouTube and its parent Google as lead counsel in a billion-dollar infringement suit brought by Viacom in federal district court in New York. The court’s landmark decision held that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s “safe harbor” protects YouTube against liability for the presence of allegedly infringing videos on the site. The Washington Post called the win “an immense legal victory” for Google, and The New York Times noted the ruling’s “major implications for the scores of Internet sites . . . that are largely built with content uploaded by their users.”  Andy recently represented Charter Communications in a series of fiercely litigated copyright suits brought by major record labels and music publishers, and he currently is defending X Corp. (formerly Twitter) against music publishers’ allegations of copyright infringement stemming from users’ posts on the service.

In the field of data privacy, Andy’s recent successes include winning summary judgment for Google as lead counsel in Calhoun et al. v Google, a high-profile class action in which plaintiffs sought billions of dollars on behalf of all US Chrome users on the basis of Google’s alleged misappropriation of personal data through its third-party web services.  The Daily Journal selected the summary judgment victory as one of the “Top Verdicts” of 2022. He is currently defending Google in a separate privacy class action brought by users of the “Incognito” browsing mode, in which he and a team from QE persuaded the court to reject the plaintiffs’ request to certify a damages class.

Andy has won victories for both plaintiffs and defendants in civil RICO suits, and obtained one of the largest jury verdicts ever reported in a New York trade-secrets case, on behalf of a global manufacturer of transportation equipment .

In criminal matters Andy’s successes include winning acquittal at trial on all counts for a NYSE Specialist Broker accused of securities fraud–a result The Wall Street Journal noted was the government’s “first defeat in prosecutions of allegedly improper trading activity on the New York Stock Exchange” after a string of convictions in a series of closely watched cases. The WSJ observed that after a two-week jury trial, the verdict in favor of Mr. Schapiro’s client was “quick and unanimous.”  Andy has also won jury acquittals on all counts for, among others, individuals accused of bribery, conspiracy, and commercial extortion.  Andy co-authored the brief that persuaded the Second Circuit to throw out the obstruction of justice conviction of well known investment banker Frank Quattrone. In the wake of that decision, in the words of Time magazine, “prosecutors waved a white flag” and abandoned any effort to pursue a retrial.

Andy stepped away from the firm from 2014-17 to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic, after being nominated by President Obama and confirmed by a unanimous Senate. In that position he led a 240-person multi-agency post and strengthened the US relationship with this important NATO ally and trading partner. During his tenure, he advocated for and negotiated on behalf of the U.S. government and U.S. companies on a daily basis, strengthening a $6 billion trade relationship and deepening cooperation on issues such as cyber security, education, and law enforcement.  

Andy is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, where he was a recipient of the Sears Prize and Articles Co-Chair of the Harvard Law Review.  He served as a law clerk to Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and to Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court.  He received his undergraduate degree from Yale, magna cum laude, and earned an M.A. from Oxford University, as a Marshall Scholar.