Our Team

Naomi Jane Gray is a principal in the law firm Shades of Gray Law Group, P.C., where she focuses her practice on copyright and trademark litigation, prosecution and counseling. She is the immediate Past President of the Copyright Society, a nonprofit organization devoted to copyright law awareness and education.

She has managed complex cases in all phases of litigation, from prelitigation counseling through appellate review, and has considerable experience in discovery and motion practice.

Ms. Gray’s extensive copyright law experience includes representing a magazine publisher in a series of cutting-edge lawsuits at the intersection of traditional print media and emerging electronic technologies which ultimately established the publisher’s right to reproduce its magazine in electronic format (see, e.g., Faulkner, et al. v. National Geographic Society, et al., 294 F. Supp. 2d 523 (S.D.N.Y. 2003); aff’d, 409 F.3d 26 (2d Cir. 2005)). Ms. Gray has advised clients with respect to diverse types of copyright issues, including fair use, work for hire, transfers, licenses and enforcement in transactional, counseling and litigation settings.

Ms. Gray is a frequent speaker on topical issues on the copyright area, having appeared at events hosted by the Copyright Society; the American Intellectual Property Law Association; the Practising Law Institute; the American Bar Association; the State Bar of California; the San Francisco Intellectual Property Law Association; and the Center for Law, Technology and the Arts of Case Western Reserve University School of Law. Her publications include:

• Fair Use, published in Understanding Copyright Law 2009 (Practising Law Institute)
• Enforcing Copyrights, published in Understanding Copyright Law 2008 (Practising Law Institute)
• Overview of Copyright Basics and Basic of the Copyright Office, published in Understanding Copyright Law 2007 (Practising Law Institute)
• International Protection of a Franchisor’s System (Copyrights), published in American Bar Association Forum on Franchising (2004)
• Comment: Analyzing the Publisher’s Section 201(c) Privilege in the Wake of New York Times v. Tasini, 53 C.W.L.R. (2003)

Ms. Gray has held numerous leadership positions within the Copyright Society, including:

• Executive Committee Member and Honorary Trustee, 2022-present
• President, 2020-2022
• Vice-President, 2018-2020
• Treasurer, 2016-2018
• National Chapter Coordinator, 2012-2014
• Ex officio member, Executive Committee and Presidential Advisory Board, 2011-2013
• Trustee, 2006-2008 and 2014-2016
• Chair, Northern California Chapter, 2005-2007

She also served on the Committee on Copyrights and Literary Property of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York from 2000-2003.

Ms. Gray is admitted to practice in the states of California, New York, and Washington; the United States District Courts for the Northern, Central and Eastern Districts of California and the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York; the United States Courts of Appeal for the Second and Ninth Circuits; and the United States Supreme Court.

Ms. Gray graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 1995, where she served as an editor of the Michigan Journal of International Law and the Michigan Journal of Gender and Law. She obtained bachelor’s degrees in Government and French Studies from Smith College in 1992, where she competed at the 1992 World Debating Championships in Dublin, Ireland and the 1992 National Debating Championships in Boston, Massachusetts. She also holds a Certificat d’Etudes Politiques from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris, France. She is fluent in French.