Nicole Hyland

Nicole Hyland is a partner in the Litigation Group and Professional Responsibility Group at Frankfurt Kurnit, as well as Deputy General Counsel for the firm. Her practice focuses primarily on legal ethics, professional responsibility, and legal malpractice. She is recognized by Best Lawyers in America in the 2024-2025 editions for Legal Malpractice Law – Defendants and has been named a "Super Lawyer" by Super Lawyers magazine for ten consecutive years.

Ms. Hyland counsels attorneys and law firms on a wide range of issues, such as conflicts of interest, legal fee disputes, escrow issues, disqualification motions, multijurisdictional law practice, business transactions with clients, lateral transitions, law firm formation and break-ups, advertising and social media use, and other professional responsibility issues. Ms. Hyland also represents defendants and plaintiffs in legal malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty disputes and acts as an expert witness on a variety of ethics and legal malpractice issues.

In addition to her legal ethics and professional responsibility practice, Ms. Hyland has an active litigation practice. She handles commercial litigation as well as disputes within the entertainment industry, such as intellectual property claims and disputes over financing, production, distribution, and talent agreements.

Since 2008, Ms. Hyland has been a member of the Association of Professional Responsibility lawyers (APRL), a national organization of ethics and professional responsibility lawyers. She is chair of the Professional Ethics Committee of the New York Women’s Bar Association.

Ms. Hyland is a past Chair of the Committee on Professional Ethics of the New York City Bar Association, which provides guidance to New York state lawyers on a wide range of ethical issues, issues formal and informal written opinions, and operates the Ethics Hotline, a free resource for all New York state attorneys. After her tenure as Chair ended, she joined the Committee’s hotline advisory board, which provides guidance to the City Bar’s ethics hotline.

Ms. Hyland writes and lectures frequently on legal ethics and professional responsibility issues. She assisted Professor Roy Simon in editing and co-authoring multiple editions of his seminal treatise: Simon’s New York Rules of Professional Conduct Annotated.

Ms. Hyland is admitted to practice in New York.