Erica is a North Carolina State Bar Board Certified Specialist in Trademark Law. She assists individuals, small businesses, and large corporations with a wide array of intellectual property matters. Her practice focuses on trademark selection and clearance, trademark prosecution and registration, and trademark portfolio management. She also routinely engages in resolving trademark disputes, including drafting and responding to cease-and-desist letters, negotiating coexistence agreements, assisting in trademark infringement litigation in federal court, and handling cases before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB).

In addition, Erica advises and represents clients in online brand enforcement, including disputes over domain names and social media usernames and handles, takedowns and impersonation matters, and proceedings under domain name dispute policies. From an advertising and consumer protection perspective, she counsels on the intersection of IP and marketing, including brand use in comparative advertising, endorsements, influencer marketing, and FTC disclosures.

Erica guides copyright matters, often in the form of counseling clients on ownership, acquisition, protection, and enforcement. Erica also drafts and negotiates software, name, image, and likeness, and other intellectual property license agreements. She understands the personal, financial, and meaningful effort clients invest in their intellectual property, and her background and work reflect this understanding.

Erica’s focus on intellectual property law extends to assisting with transactional, licensing, and various business matters in multiple industries, including matters in the hemp and CBD industries. She is available to assist hemp breeders, growers, processors, manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and other market participants with brand protection for hemp and hemp-derived marks, Federal, state, and local legal and regulatory compliance matters, and agreements within the industry.

Erica leads the firm’s Name, Image, and Likeness Practice Group. Many individuals license commercial use of their name, image, and likeness (“NIL”) to companies, and more recently, individual collegiate athletes have been able to do so. The NIL Practice Group primarily assists businesses who work with these athletes to promote products or services, in addition to assisting NIL collectives, marketing agencies, software platform providers, and financial advisors. Erica stays aware of the changing laws and regulations in this space, which complement her already-developed skills in negotiating and drafting advertising, endorsement, and license agreements.