1. Home
  2. |Professionals
  3. |Preetha Chakrabarti

Preetha Chakrabarti

Partner | She/Her/Hers
Partner | She/Her/Hers
cGNoYWtyYWJhcnRpQGNyb3dlbGwuY29t
VCardLinkedIn
VCardLinkedIn

Areas of Focus

Overview

Creative problem solving is what clients need in this ever-changing technological landscape. Clients ask: “Can I protect this asset?” “How do I fight this competitor” “Will AI impact my business?” That’s where Preetha Chakrabarti comes in. As a member of the firm’s Intellectual Property Department and Advertising & Brand Protection group, Preetha seeks to offer holistic and integrated counsel to her clients. Her practice cuts across all areas of intellectual property and advertising, consisting of litigation, counseling, licensing, and transactional due diligence as well as trademark prosecution. In particular, she advises clients in the technology, retail, and fashion industries on how best to manage risks when using and developing intellectual property—and then when making consumers and customers aware of such intellectual property.

Preetha is also well known for helping companies understand their obligations regarding the advertising of environmental, social, and governance-related claims, including claims about carbon offsets, greenwashing, bluewashing, waste reduction and recycling, woke-washing, and social issues. She leverages rich experience in counseling companies across multiple industries—including food and beverage, fashion, media and telecommunications, technology, and consumer products—to help clients understand industry-specific challenges and achieve their business objectives.

Preetha also takes pro bono work seriously, and her practice includes cases involving appellate, immigration, family, and employment law as well as IP counseling for nonprofit entities. Preetha currently co-chairs the firm’s Public Service Committee, and she successfully represented Sandra Avery, a woman sentenced to life in prison for a nonviolent, low-level drug crime who sought commutation of her sentence from President Barack Obama, reducing her life sentence to time served. Sandra was one of the 95 nonviolent drug offenders to whom Obama granted clemency in December 2015. Preetha was featured in the documentary film The Vanishing Trial by the Families Against Mandatory Minimums and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, released in 2020 in connection with her representation of Sandra. She also received the firm’s 2015 George Bailey Award for her pro bono contributions. In July 2023, Preetha was appointed to The City of New York Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary, which works to recruit and encourage diverse and highly qualified persons to serve as a judge of the Criminal, Family, or on an interim basis, the Civil Court.

There are many experiences that form the foundation of Preetha’s interdisciplinary legal practice, but a few stand out: one, her involvement with LawWithoutWalls, a part-virtual collaboration that develops problem-solving and project management business skills necessary to provide effective legal services in today’s global, multidisciplinary, and cross-cultural marketplace. Two, her 2015 selection as a Pathfinder by the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity, a national organization comprised of the legal profession’s top general counsels and managing partners. And three, her service as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable O. Rogeriee Thompson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit from 2019-2020.

Career & Education

    • Department of Justice: United States Attorneys' Office
      Legal Intern, Criminal Division, Southern District of New York, 2011
    • U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
      Judicial Law Clerk, Honorable O. Rogeriee Thompson, 2019–2020
    • Department of Justice: United States Attorneys' Office
      Legal Intern, Criminal Division, Southern District of New York, 2011
    • U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
      Judicial Law Clerk, Honorable O. Rogeriee Thompson, 2019–2020

    • Brown University, B.A., cum laude, biology and classics
    • Columbia University, M.A., secondary science education
    • Fordham University School of Law, J.D., magna cum laude, 2012
    • Brown University, B.A., cum laude, biology and classics
    • Columbia University, M.A., secondary science education
    • Fordham University School of Law, J.D., magna cum laude, 2012

    • New York
    • New Jersey
    • Supreme Court of the United States
    • U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
    • U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York
    • U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey
    • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
    • U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
    • New York
    • New Jersey
    • Supreme Court of the United States
    • U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
    • U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York
    • U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey
    • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
    • U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit

  • Professional Activities and Memberships

    Professional Activities and Memberships

Preetha's Insights

Client Alert | 4 min read | 07.02.25

Section 230 Reform: What Websites Need to Know Now

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 has been credited with “creating” the internet by immunizing websites and platforms from lawsuits arising from the content posted by third-party users. Specifically, an internet company is not liable for publishing or posting content drafted by another person under conventional common law tort theories such as defamation or slander, however loathsome, violent or otherwise hateful that content is.  At the same time, Section 230 also immunizes a website or platform that engages in good-faith moderation of content it deems to violate its terms of use/conditions or community standards. ...

View All Insights

Recognition

  • World Trademark Review 1000, 2025
  • City and State New York: The Responsible 100, 2023
  • Legal 500 United States: Intellectual Property: Trademarks: Non-Contentious (including Prosecution, Portfolio Management and Licensing), 2023, 2024
  • Legal 500 United States: Media, Technology and Telecoms: Advertising and Marketing: Transactional and Regulatory), 2024
  • World Trademark Review 1000, 2023
  • The City of New York Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary, 2023
  • Lawyers Alliance for New York: Cornerstone Award, 2021
  • New York State Bar Association: Outstanding Young Lawyer Award, 2019
  • South Asian Bar Association: Rising Star Award, 2019
  • Legal Aid Society: Pro Bono Publico Award, 2016, 2021
  • Empire State Counsel for Pro Bono Service, 2013 – 2016

Preetha's Insights

Client Alert | 4 min read | 07.02.25

Section 230 Reform: What Websites Need to Know Now

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 has been credited with “creating” the internet by immunizing websites and platforms from lawsuits arising from the content posted by third-party users. Specifically, an internet company is not liable for publishing or posting content drafted by another person under conventional common law tort theories such as defamation or slander, however loathsome, violent or otherwise hateful that content is.  At the same time, Section 230 also immunizes a website or platform that engages in good-faith moderation of content it deems to violate its terms of use/conditions or community standards. ...

View All Insights

Insights

Client Alert | 4 min read | 07.02.25

Section 230 Reform: What Websites Need to Know Now

Speaking Engagement | 06.20.25

"Key Principles of Trademark Law and Unfair Competition," Fundamentals of Trademark Law in the Global Marketplace 2025, Practising Law Institute

Press Coverage | 06.17.25

School's Out: 8 Summer Reading Picks For IP Attorneys

Webinar | 06.11.25

Section 230: Implications for Digital Platforms, Online Businesses and E-Commerce

View All Insights

Practices

Industries

Preetha's Insights

Client Alert | 4 min read | 07.02.25

Section 230 Reform: What Websites Need to Know Now

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 has been credited with “creating” the internet by immunizing websites and platforms from lawsuits arising from the content posted by third-party users. Specifically, an internet company is not liable for publishing or posting content drafted by another person under conventional common law tort theories such as defamation or slander, however loathsome, violent or otherwise hateful that content is.  At the same time, Section 230 also immunizes a website or platform that engages in good-faith moderation of content it deems to violate its terms of use/conditions or community standards. ...

View All Insights