Biography
Jacqueline C. Charlesworth, a partner at Alter, Kendrick & Baron LLP, is a litigator and transactional attorney whose practice is focused on copyright law and policy. Ms. Charlesworth’s clients include leading music, entertainment and software companies, as well as individual recording artists and songwriters.
In addition to handling litigation and complex licensing transactions, Ms. Charlesworth advises on copyright-related legislative and regulatory matters. In 2018, she was named a Billboard Woman Executive of the Year for her role in helping to craft and secure passage of the Music Modernization Act, landmark legislation to update U.S. music licensing rules.
Previously, Ms. Charlesworth served as General Counsel and Associate Register of Copyrights of the U.S. Copyright Office, where she had primary responsibility for interpretation of the U.S. Copyright Act and oversaw a wide range of litigation, legislative, regulatory and policy matters, including the Office’s participation in Supreme Court cases.
Ms. Charlesworth has lectured extensively on music and copyright law, including at Yale, Harvard, Columbia and other law schools. She also serves on the board of the Los Angeles Copyright Society.
Ms. Charlesworth received a B.A. from Brown University and a J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was an Executive Committee Editor of The Yale Law Journal. Following law school, she clerked for Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and Judge Betty B. Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.