Fashion Law Institute

Join us on Friday, February 20, for our 11th annual “Inside Out” panel discussion, “Tailored Suits: Fashion’s In-House Counsel on Managing Litigation”!

DATE:  Friday, February 20, 2026
TIME:  9:30-10:45 am
PLACE:  Fordham Law School, 150 W. 62nd Street, New York, NY  10023
NYS CLE: 1.5 hours professional practice, transitional and non-transitional

Registration link in bio.

Against a backdrop of political, cultural, and financial upheaval, both courtrooms and this season’s best looks are bastions of precision, proportion, and structure.  And like custom tailoring and couture, well-constructed lawsuits in fashion are built from the inside out, with in-house counsel taking the measure of the situation and making critical decisions about whether or not to litigate, selection of outside counsel, their own degrees of involvement at various points, and everything else that happens behind the scenes.  These influential attorneys typically keep their lips zipped, engaging law firms to present everything from narrowly tailored arguments to voluminous briefs, but our extraordinary speakers have agreed to discuss their processes, stories, do’s, don’ts, and other off-the-record insights. 

Please note that in order to facilitate candid conversation, this event is in-person only and will not be livestreamed or recorded.

Exactly twenty years ago, I went public with “fashion law” as a field– after many conversations and years of research stretching back to before the millennium. 

Lots of lawyers laughed.

But because of you, the idea has gone global,
and the fashion industry now has a legal infrastructure to support and guide it.

This year’s Fashion Law Institute holiday theme is personal, combining hope for the future with a nod to “lux et veritas” or “light and truth” – the motto of the university where once I sat in a law school class and wondered about the legal status of fashion.

Peace and light,
Susan Scafidi
 
 All of us at the Fashion Law Institute are excited to see you in the new year,
including at these upcoming events:

Inside Out 11: Fashion’s In-House Counsel
Friday, February 6, 2026

16th Annual Symposium
Friday, April 17, 2026

Applications for our next Fashion Law Bootcamp in New York are also open!

Thanks to the many generous donors and supporters who have made fashion law a reality, and to the following Fashion Law Pop-Up Clinic hosts (in addition to the many talented attorneys who volunteered their time):

Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman
Dentons
Kilpatrick
Kirkland & Ellis
New York City Bar Fashion Law Committee

Congratulations to on a beautiful 2025 awards ceremony, and to all of the fashionable honorees and nominees! I’ll never quite relax while dining under a giant blue whale, but as always the event went swimmingly.

Join us next Tuesday evening for “Death, Divorce, & Drama: Managing the Personal and Professional in Fashion”!  

Registration link in bio

DATE:  Tuesday, October 28, 2025
TIME:  6:30-7:45 pm (reception starting at 6:00 pm)
PLACE:  Costantino Room, 2nd Floor, Fordham Law School, 150 W. 62nd Street, New York, NY  10023
NYS CLE: 1.5 hours ethics and professionalism

SPEAKERS:
* Nick Barnhorst, Fresh
* Robert Stephan Cohen, Cohen Clair Lans Greifer & Simpson
* Jeff Trexler, Fashion Ethics, Sustainability, & Development Professor
* Gary Wassner, Hilldun

Fashion brands are often personal endeavors, founded, funded, and run by friends, lovers, and family members.  Creative partnerships are a longstanding source of success in the industry, but the connections between the personal and the pruofessional also give rise to complications, including questions of death and succession, fallout from a divorce or breakup, and daily dramas.  The off-the-runway events that were the talk of the industry during the recent fashion month — Giorgio Armani’s unusual will and the Natalie Massenet / Erik Torstensson split — are the most prominent recent examples, but these issues eventually affect many fashion designers and companies.  How can the personal and the professional coexist productively?  What makes succession successful?  What are the official and unofficial roles of attorneys when the bosses’ boardrooms and the bedrooms are effectively the same space?  What happens when employees, board members, and counsel are caught in interpersonal or intergenerational crossfire?  Will European-style family businesses, American-influenced independent investment, or some other form be the future of fashion?

Chic eats: Thanks to all of our attorney and student volunteers and our student directors for another successful pro bono Fashion Law Pop-Up Clinic, and especially to Joshua Simmons and Kirkland & Ellis for being such generous and elegant hosts!

Ready to read: Honored to be included in new memoir, Storyteller, along with and so many fashion luminaries who came out to hear his brilliant, funny, and incredibly impressive interview with at 92NY this evening. Bravo, Jeffrey!

Join us next Friday for our NYFW panel, “Alterations & Altercations: How far can fashion trademarks stretch?” Registration link in bio.

Trademark protection is strong, flexible, and woven into the fabric of the fashion industry.  In the absence of comprehensive, internationally harmonized intellectual property rights, fashion houses and designers often turn to trademarks to protect their work.  Even such an elastic field of law has limits, however, and recent cases such as Lululemon’s complex case against Costco, Coogi’s lawsuit against Louis Vuitton, Epoch’s objection to certain uses of its Calico Critters, Vetements’ challenge to the refusal to register its mark, Hermès’ Birkin battles, and adidas’ strife over its three stripes are challenging attorneys to think creatively.  Join us during New York Fashion Week as we celebrate fifteen years of the Fashion Law Institute and ask our distinguished panel of experts to ponder a perennial problem, “Alterations & Altercations: How far can fashion trademarks stretch?” 

DATE:  Friday, September 12, 2025
TIME:  9:30-10:45 am (with coffee at 9:00 am)
PLACE:  Bateman Room, 2nd Floor, Fordham Law School, 150 W. 62nd Street, New York, NY  10023
NYS CLE: 1.5 hours professional practice, transitional and non-transitional

Congratulations to our 2025 Fashion Law graduates! We are so proud of you and look forward to watching your next steps.

Fashion Law Bootcamp returns to New York! Join fashion law pioneer Professor Susan Scafidi and special guest speakers from May 27-31 for an intensive program covering current legal and business issues in the fashion industry.

Fashion Law Bootcamp is open to lawyers (and offers CLE credit), fashion professionals, law students, design students and alumni, and others in the U.S. and abroad who are interested in broadening their knowledge of the law and business of fashion.
More information, including an overview of topics and the application form, can be found here:

Fashion Law Bootcamp Join us in New York for this special intensive program from May 27 -May 31, 2025!

Wrapping up another successful Fashion Law Pop-Up Clinic! Thank you to the incredible volunteer attorneys volunteer fashion law students and our student clinic directors! We are wishing our graduating student director a wonderful next step in her career. Our next clinic will be help in September!

Please join us this Friday, April 4, for the highlight of the fashion law calendar – our 15th annual Fashion Law Institute symposium, “FASHION IS FIRE”! Registration link in bio.

DATE: April 4, 2025
TIME: 9am-6pm
PLACE: Fordham Law School, 150 W. 62nd Street, 2nd floor
NYS CLE: 6.0 hours total (5.0 professional practice, transitional & non-transitional, and 1.0 diversity, inclusion, and elimination of bias)

SCHEDULE:

9:20am
WELCOME: All fired up!

9:30-10:30am
Flamed out: Antitrust law and fashion in the wake of the blocked Tapestry / Capri merger and the Saks / Neiman Marcus acquisition

10:45-11:45am
World on fire: Managing external crises, from political upheaval to natural disasters

12-1pm
LUNCH: (Hopefully not) burnt offerings

1:15-2:15pm
Phoenix rising: Looking ahead to the EU Digital Product Passport, revised FTC Green Guides, and the future of sustainability

2:30-3:30pm
Too hot to handle? “Woke” fashion in the wake of interconnected challenges to DEI, academia, immigration, and drag

3:45-4:45pm
Spark of genius: Protecting IP in the dupe culture era

5-6pm:
RECEPTION: Afterglow

This event will not be livestreamed, but if we are able to record individual panels, we will share the links afterward.