J. Craig Smyser

Since joining Susman Godfrey, Craig has scored successes for his clients in some of the most significant cases in the United States.

WINS

In the “historic” copyright infringement action Bartz v. Anthropic, Craig and a team from Susman Godfrey secured a $1.5 billion settlement for rightsholders whose books were downloaded by Anthropic from pirated databases. If approved, it will be the single largest recovery in any copyright case ever. Read more in The New York Times, Bloomberg, Reuters, and Law.com. Relatedly, alongside Susman Godfrey partners Justin Nelson and Rohit Nath, Craig co-authored an article for the Texas State Bar’s The Advocate setting forth their analysis of copyright cases in which AI companies are alleged to have pirated millions of books. The approach in their article prefigured the historic settlement in Bartz v. Anthropic.

Craig also serves as counsel on behalf of a group of prominent writers—including John Grisham, David Baldacci, Jonathan Franzen, and George R.R. Martin—against OpenAI and Microsoft in In re: Open AI Copyright Infringement Litigation. In addition, Craig is representing plaintiffs against NVIDIA and Databricks in litigation related to copyright infringement and artificial intelligence.

Other major wins include:

• Representing the former owner of an NFL football team in issues involving the sale of the franchise.
• Securing significant licensing agreements for antenna design firm, Fractus, S.A., following patent litigation against ADT and Vivint in the Eastern District of Texas. The Vivint suit settled shortly after Craig argued at the claim construction hearing, and the ADT case settled on the eve of trial following favorable rulings Craig achieved at the pre-trial conference on summary judgment and Daubert.
• Scoring a win for air ambulance companies who challenged regulations promulgated under the Federal No Suprises Act before the district court and the Fifth Circuit inTexas Medical Association, et al. v. U.S. Dep’t of Health and Human Services.
• Representing Match.com in the first major jury trial in the New York Commercial Division after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic against founders of Tinder over claims relating to valuation of synthetic equity options. The client described Craig as a “star” with “superb” “client management skills.”

BACKGROUND

Craig joined Susman Godfrey after clerking for the Honorable Debra Ann Livingston of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for the Honorable Christopher R. Cooper of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. 

Craig earned his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was a semifinalist in the Ames Moot Court competition and served as Executive Submissions Editor of the Journal on Legislation. Before that, he graduated cum laude with Departmental Honors in Philosophy from Dartmouth College. Prior to law school, Craig served as a Fulbright Teaching Fellow in Turkey and worked as a consultant for L.E.K. Consulting in New York City.

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