Ciara McHale is a trial and appellate attorney with a decade of experience representing innovative companies in intellectual property and business disputes. Her practice focuses on copyright, trademark, trade secret, unfair competition, privacy and commercial litigation matters in the internet, digital media, and technology industries. Ciara handles disputes at all stages, including pre-litigation dispute resolution, intellectual property enforcement and protection, discovery, dispositive motions, trial, arbitration, and mediation.  

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), content moderation, anonymous speech on the Internet, and right of publicity.   

Some of Ciara’s recent litigation highlights include:

• Winning a jury verdict of willful copyright infringement in the Northern District of California for the content creators of CoComelon, serving as second chair and handling key witnesses, argument, and negotiations with opposing counsel. The jury awarded damages totaling $23.4m, finding the infringing content virtually identical to CoComelon’s protectable JJ character and that defendants violated Section 512(f) by making knowing and material misrepresentations in a counter notice to YouTube.   

• Winning dismissal of a consumer arbitration before the AAA based solely on submission of documents, without a hearing. 

• Obtaining a favorable settlement in a commercial arbitration on behalf of client who had experienced years of harm from being denied compensation by the respondent for use of its IP before engaging Ciara and the firm.  

• Arguing before the Ninth Circuit and winning reversal of a district court decision on behalf of a video game developer. 

• Winning a motion to compel arbitration for video game company Scopely, Inc., in the District of New Jersey in a consumer unfair competition class action.  

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.  While at Fenwick, Ciara 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 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 received her B.A. in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley.