Kathy Shapiro

Kathy has experienced firsthand the challenges of managing in-house legal work in a timely and cost-effective way, and she brings that understanding, skill set, and sensitivity to her legal practice at Shapiro Legal Counsel. With over two decades of legal and business experience, including as general counsel to a high-growth data analytics company, Kathy now focuses exclusively on helping technology entrepreneurs, start-ups, and other technology companies with their general corporate legal needs as outside counsel.  

Kathy's clients include innovative tech start-ups backed by top VC firms who have invested in transformative technologies as well as other cutting-edge, but more established tech companies that are worldwide leaders in shaping many aspects of how we live and work such as Google. Working with these bright, thoughtful people and seeing how their work is transforming our world inspires Kathy every day.

Immediately prior to starting Shapiro Legal Counsel, Kathy served as the first General Counsel of Return Path, Inc. (acquired by Validity) and a member of the company's senior executive team from 2011 to 2015. Kathy had previously served as outside counsel to Return Path for two years. Prior to Return Path, Kathy was part of Axiom Legal's New York office. For five years prior to Axiom, Kathy served as Assistant General Counsel to Ann Taylor Inc., an NYSE-listed public company (now part of Ascena). Before moving in-house, Kathy was a corporate attorney at Covington & Burling and started her legal career at Weil Gotshal & Manges in New York.

Education

J.D., Columbia University School of Law, 1996
Articles Editor, Columbia Journal of Law and Social Problems.

B.A., Harvard College, magna cum laude, 1991
National Science Foundation Scholarship Prize; John Harvard Scholar; and Elizabeth Cary Agassiz Scholar.

Bar Admissions

State of New York
State of New Jersey (inactive)

Certifications

Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP-US)  
IAPP Privacy Bar
IAPP Women Leading Privacy
International Association of Privacy Professionals

DMA Certified Marketing Professional in Marketing Data Governance - 
Direct Marketing Association

AI for Everyone Course Completion Certificate (taught by Andrew Ng, a Co-founder and Head of Google Brain, former Chief Scientist at Baidu, and Adjunct Professor at Stanford)
DeepLearning.AI

Associations and affiliations

American Bar Association (ABA)
ABA - Science & Technology Law Member, AI & Robotics

Tech:NYC

Direct Contact information

kathy@shapirolegalcounsel.com