| Alex Spiro | |
| Birth Name: | Alexander Benjamin Spiro |
| Birth Date: | 12 December 1982 |
| Birth Place: | New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation: | Lawyer |
| Employer: | Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan |
Alexander Benjamin Spiro (born 1982) is an American attorney. He is a partner at the New York office of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan.
Spiro was born in New York and grew up in Boston.[1] He is the eldest of four children to a clinical psychologist mother and a dentist father.[2]
Spiro studied biopsychology at Tufts University, graduating summa cum laude.[3] While in college, he considered a career in psychiatry and worked on an adolescent psychiatry unit at McLean Hospital.[4] In 2008, Spiro received his J.D. from Harvard Law School.[3] During the program, he did a fellowship at the Central Intelligence Agency.
In 2016, Spiro filed a lawsuit against the University of Oregon on behalf of two basketball players who were expelled after being accused of sexually assaulting a freshman at an off-campus party in 2014. The lawsuit alleged that Oregon investigators were biased against the expelled students and asked for damages in the amount of $10 million for each player.[5] The lawsuit was dismissed by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously in 2019.[6]
Also in 2016, Spiro represented Aaron Hernandez in his double homicide trial and the appeal of his 2015 murder conviction[7] in which he was initially acquitted, although Hernandez’s murder conviction was reinstated in a ruling from Massachusetts’ highest court in 2019.[8]
In 2017, Spiro won a lawsuit against New York City, which agreed to pay $4 million to Thabo Sefolosha, who was an NBA player for the Atlanta Hawks at the time. In the federal lawsuit, he accused five police officers of false arrest and using excessive force during an encounter outside a Manhattan nightclub.[9] [10]
In 2018, Spiro was part of the defense team for David Demos, defending his case involving the use of illegal sales practices, including fraud for lying to clients. Another notable case of this instance includes that of Jesse Litvak.[11]
In February 2019, Spiro was asked by Jay-Z and Roc Nation[12] to help with the immigration arrest of rapper/songwriter 21 Savage, resulting in the rapper's release from federal custody.[13]
In March 2019, Spiro was chosen to be part of Robert Kraft's legal team, defending him against misdemeanor charges of solicitation.[14]
In September 2019, Spiro obtained a dismissal of a breach of contract and unjust enrichment claim brought by a former trainer of tennis player Naomi Osaka.[15]
In December 2019, Spiro defended Elon Musk in a defamation case raised by Vernon Unsworth from statements made relating to their involvement in the Tham Luang cave rescue. The jury ultimately found Musk not liable.[16] Spiro has also represented Musk in a suit brought by shareholders over Tesla acquiring SolarCity.[17] In 2022, after Musk took control of Twitter, Spiro has taken an active role in the legal team, and led conversations about a 25% layoff of employees.[18]
In March 2020, Spiro and hip-hop artists Killer Mike, Meek Mill, Yo Gotti, and Chance the Rapper sent a brief to the United States Supreme Court, detailing the ways rap music is stigmatized and stereotyped by the legal system.[19]
In May 2020, Spiro filed a lawsuit against the health care providers for inmates at Mississippi prisons, after Jay-Z's Roc Nation filed their own lawsuit on behalf of a group of inmates. The lawsuit accuses them of an "entire breakdown in Mississippi prisons' healthcare system."[20]
In May 2021, the family of Don Lewis hired Spiro to investigate his 1997 disappearance which gained renewed interest after the airing of the Netflix series Tiger King.[21]
In June 2021, Spiro obtained a temporary restraining order against Roc Nation co-founder Damon Dash in Manhattan federal court, blocking a planned non-fungible token auction of his copyright interest in Jay-Z’s debut album Reasonable Doubt.[22]
In November 2021, a New York Jury decided in favor of Spiro, finding Jay-Z not liable in a suit stemming from a cologne deal in 2013. Jay-Z was awarded $4.5 million as a result.[23]
Spiro has previously been involved with investigations and litigation surrounding Robert Durst,[24] Alec Baldwin and Philip Seymour Hoffman.[25] Spiro has represented musical artists, such as Mick Jagger[26] and Bobby Shmurda,[1] as well as athletes, including Charles Oakley[27] and Julian Edelman.[28]
In a filing against SEC to rescind a consent decree, Spiro paraphrased Eminem's song "Without Me": (SEC) won’t let me be or let me be me so let me see; They tried to shut me down,[29] [30] replacing FCC with SEC.[31] [32] That SEC decree requires Musk's tweets about his businesses, especially Tesla, to be vetted by Tesla's lawyers before posting.[33]
In 2022, Musk appointed Spiro to oversee Twitter’s legal, marketing, and trust and safety teams, which included responsibility for Twitter's elections work.[34]
In February 2023, Spiro represented Elon Musk in a securities fraud trial, leading to a verdict that found Musk not liable. The investors in the trial had alleged that Musk misled them when he tweeted in 2018 that he had 'funding secured' to take Tesla private.[35]
Spiro also represented Tesla in a retrial involving a lawsuit filed by former contract worker Owen Diaz. Initially, Diaz was awarded $136.9 million in damages for facing racism at Tesla's premises. However, after an appeal and a new trial with Spiro on the defense team, the damages were significantly reduced to approximately $3.2 million.[36]
In May 2023, Spiro, leading Twitter's legal team, has accused Microsoft of misusing Twitter's data, potentially exceeding usage limits and breaching usage agreement terms related to government entities, setting the stage for a potential legal battle over AI development.[37]
In July 2023, Spiro, on behalf of Twitter threatened to sue Meta Platforms on the day of launch of Threads app. Twitter claimed that Meta engaged in the misappropriation of trade secrets and intellectual property owned by Twitter and that certain features and functionalities present in their app closely resemble proprietary elements and innovations that Twitter has developed over time.[38]
Spiro represents Charlie Javice in her defense against JPMorgan Chase's lawsuit in which she was charged with securities fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy.[39]
In March 2024, Spiro represented Elon Musk in a defamation lawsuit from Benjamin Brody that accused Musk of falsely suggesting that Brody was a government agent who participated in a neo-Nazi brawl.[40] Since then, Spiro has faced sanctions over the case for "unauthorized practice of law" due to not being licensed to practice in Texas, where the case was brought.[41]
In July of 2024, Spiro defended at trial Alec Baldwin from a New Mexico manslaughter charge stemming from the movie Rust where the cinematographer was shot and killed by Baldwin from a prop gun. On July 12, Spiro filed a successful motion to dismiss the charge against Baldwin with prejudice over withheld evidence, meaning Baldwin cannot be retried.[42]
Spiro worked at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office as an Assistant District Attorney until 2013.[4] He prosecuted Rodney Alcala, known as “The Dating Game Killer," for two New York murders in the 1970s.[1]