Overview
Tom Hentoff serves as Co-Chair of Williams & Connolly’s Trademark and Copyright and First Amendment and Media practice groups. His practice is concentrated in three areas: intellectual property disputes, First Amendment and media law, and complex civil litigation. Tom has represented clients in a wide variety of copyright, trademark, trade secret, defamation, privacy, false-advertising, and class action litigation and counseling matters. He has also represented clients in a broad range of civil litigation matters at the trial and appellate levels.
Law360 named Tom as one of five Media & Entertainment MVPs in 2021 and 2022, recognition given to “an elite group of attorneys who are leaders in their practice areas and have seen extraordinary wins in the past year.” The Legal 500 listed him in 2024 as one of twelve “leading partners” ranked nationally in Media and Entertainment: Litigation. Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business (2007-26) has recognized Tom as a leading individual among Washington, D.C. media and entertainment lawyers and national First Amendment litigators, noted for his work in “First Amendment and media law and IP litigation.” Chambers has reported client praise for his “excellent judgment,” “fantastic sensibility” for business issues, “thorough, analytical approach to copyright issues,” and “first-class written product.” Chambers highlighted one client’s description of Tom as “brilliant, extremely diligent and fantastic when it comes to new media and technology issues” and has quoted another as stating: “He would be on my dream team of lawyers.”
Tom has also been recognized in First Amendment and media law by Washington D.C. Super Lawyers (2009-24) and Media Law by Best Lawyers in America (2008-24), in Media and Entertainment: Litigation by The Legal 500 (2020-2024), and as an IP Star in Copyright, D.C. and National (2021-25) by Managing IP. In 2022 Washington magazine named Tom to the Top Lawyers Hall of Fame. He was also named Best Lawyers’ Washington, D.C. Lawyer of the Year for 2023 in Litigation – First Amendment and in First Amendment Law, and its Lawyer of the Year for 2015 and 2014 in Copyright Law and for 2024 in First Amendment Law.
Born and raised in New York City, Tom graduated from Wesleyan University with honors in 1985, and received his J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was a Stone Scholar and a senior editor of the Columbia Law Review. He joined Williams & Connolly in 1992 and is chair of the firm’s Pro Bono Committee.
Tom is a past member of the Boards of Directors of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs and the D.C. Volunteer Lawyers Project (“DCVLP”). He served as the chair of the D.C. Bar Media Law Community from 2019 to 2022 and he served on the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Committee from 2006 to 2012. In 2020. he helped lead a team that won the Human Rights First Marvin E. Frankel Award for outstanding service helping the organization achieve justice for asylum-seekers. In 2017 he led a team that won the DCVLP’s Champion of Justice Award. In 2014 and 2010, he led teams that won Washington Lawyers’ Committee Outstanding Achievement Awards for results obtained for pro bono clients in the areas of immigrant and refugee rights and prisoners’ rights. In 2010, his efforts to help launch a Consumer Law Resource Center for unrepresented litigants in D.C. Superior Court helped the Center win the D.C. Bar’s Best Bar Project award. He is also a fellow of the American Bar Foundation. His article The Secrets of Superstar Associates has been assigned reading in a number of law school legal-practice courses. In 2009, the ABA Litigation Section selected the article for inclusion in a CD collection of “Top Podcast Episodes” from Litigation magazine.