Lawyer Overview

Patrick J. Carome is a partner in both the Litigation/Controversy and Regulatory and Government Affairs Departments. He joined the firm in 1986.

Practice

Mr. Carome has handled a wide variety of high stakes litigation in both trial and appellate courts. He devotes much of his time to representation of communications and media companies in complex litigation and counseling matters. In recent years, many of his clients have been leading Internet companies.

Mr. Carome's areas of substantive expertise include defamation, privacy, copyright, trademark, press freedoms, trade secrets and general tort and contract laws. He has represented a broad range of clients on these and other issues, including AOL, Time Warner, craigslist, eBay, Google, Yahoo!, The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, ABC, Cable News Network and the American Legacy Foundation.

Recent Highlights

Mr. Carome has led the firm's representation of leading Internet companies in many cutting edge lawsuits across the country, including in the Second Circuit (Tiffany v. eBay; Spechy v. Aol and Netscape), the Fourth Circuit (Zeran v. AOL; Noah v. AOL Time Warner); the Fifth Circuit (Doe v. Yahoo!); the Seventh Circuit (CLC v. craigslist); the Ninth Circuit (Barnes v. Yahoo!; Carafano v. Metrosplash); the Tenth Circuit (Ben Ezra, Weinstein v. AOL); the Florida Supreme Court (Doe v. AOL); the California Supreme Court (Barrett v. Rosenthal), the Virginia Supreme Court (Anonymous Publicly Traded Co. v. AOL); and the federal district courts in DC (Blumenthal v. Drudge and AOL) and California (Ramkissoon v. AOL).

Mr. Carome's other recent work includes:

• Representation of Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Company in a complex battle in both federal and state courts over ownership of the largest newspaper in Utah, including three separate appellate victories in the Tenth Circuit.
• Successful defense of the American Legacy Foundation (the sponsor and creator of the nation's leading anti-tobacco counter-marketing campaign) against claims by a leading tobacco companyin the Delaware Chancery Court and the Delaware Supreme Court.
• Successful representations of the National Security Archive and Consumers Checkbook in suits under the Freedom of Information Act against (respectively) the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Professional Activities

Mr. Carome previously served as co-chair of the Media Law Resource Center's Committee on Cyberlaw, chair of the Committee on Government Information and Right to Privacy of the American Bar Association's Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section, and chair of the Steering Committee of the Administrative Law and Agency Practice Section of the District of Columbia Bar.

Mr. Carome co-authored a chapter entitled "Third-Party Content Liability in the United States," which appeared in the book Internet Law for the Business Lawyer (2001). He also is the co-author of a chapter entitled "Personal Privacy" that appears in the treatise Litigation Under the Federal Open Government Laws (14th through 24th editions, 1990-2008). He has written numerous articles concerning application of defamation and tort laws to interactive computer services that have been published in Internet Law & Business, the Journal of Internet Law, Global Telecoms Business, and the Legal Times.

Honors and Awards

Mr. Carome has been recognized as a leader in media and entertainment in the 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 editions of Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business.

Prior Experience

Mr. Carome began his legal career as a staff attorney for The Washington Post. He briefly left the firm to serve (from 1987 to 1988) as staff counsel to the US House of Representatives Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran.

Areas of Practice

• Regulatory and Government Affairs
• Communications, Privacy and Internet Law
• Litigation/Controversy
• Business Trial Group
• Media and Entertainment
• Intellectual Property Litigation
• Government and Regulatory Litigation

Representative Cases

• Salt Lake Tribune PUblishing Company

West Practice Categories

Art, Cable (Broadband), Cellular Communications, Communications & Media Law, Digital Communications, Electronic Commerce, Entertainment, Entertainment, Sports & Leisure Law, FCC, International Telecommunications, Internet, Internet, Print Media, Radio, Telecommunications, Television & Film, Wireless Communications

Bar Admissions

• District of Columbia
• Massachusetts

Education

• Harvard Law School, 1983
  JD
  Honors: magna cum laude
• Boston College, 1980
  BA, Political Science and Communications
  Honors: summa cum laude

Published Works

• Attorney General Issues FOIA Guidance, 2009
• FTC Staff Revises Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising, 2009
• President Orders Presumption of Disclosure in FOIA Matters, 2009
• Contours of CDA Section Section 230 Immunity After Craigslist and Roomates.com, 2008
• Use of Trademarks in Internet Searches: Google Cases Lead to Conflicting Results, 2005
• The Electronic Communications Privacy Act: An Unsuitable Tool for Preventing Privacy on the Web, 2001

Address

1875 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20006

Phones

+1 202 663 6610 (Business Phone)

Faxes

+1 202 663 6363 (Business Fax)

Emails

Contact Us (Business Email)

Websites

www.wilmerhale.com