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Margaret A. Dale

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Margaret Dale is a seasoned trial lawyer and first-chair litigator handling complex business disputes across a wide variety of industries and sectors, including consumer products, media and entertainment, financial services, telecommunications and technology, and higher education. A former vice-chair of the Litigation Department, she has been recognized since 2017 in Benchmark Litigation's Top 250 Women in Litigation.

Margaret’s practice covers the spectrum of complex commercial disputes, including matters involving contracts, bankruptcy and insolvency, securities, corporate governance, asset management, M&A, intellectual property, and privacy and data security.

Margaret regularly counsels clients before litigation commences to assess risk, develop strategies to minimize or avoid disputes, and resolve matters outside of the courtroom.

Margaret is a frequent writer, including authoring the chapter titled “Privileges” in the treatise Commercial Litigation in New York State Courts (Haig, 5th ed.), the chapter titled “Data Breach Litigation” in PLI’s Proskauer on Privacy, and the chapter titled “Perfecting the Appeal” in PLI’s Principles of Appellate Litigation. She also serves as the lead editor of Proskauer’s blog on commercial litigation, Minding Your Business Litigation. For over 10 years, Margaret co-authored a regular column on corporate and securities law in the New York Law Journal.

Margaret maintains an active pro bono practice advocating on issues relating to reproductive rights, women, children, and veterans. She serves on the Board of Directors of CFR (Center for Family Representation), VLA (Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts), and the City Bar Fund.

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On February 10, 2026, Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York ruled in United States v. Heppner that documents generated through a consumer version of Anthropic’s Claude AI were not protected by the attorney-client privilege or the work-product doctrine under the circumstances presented. The decision appears to be the first to squarely address privilege and work product claims arising from a non-lawyer’s use of a consumer-grade insecure, non-enterprise AI tool for “legal research,” as well as the potential consequences of inputting privileged information (provided to an individual by counsel) into an AI tool. However, putting the novelty of the AI context aside, Judge Rakoff grounded his analysis in traditional privilege principles: that disclosure of privileged communications to a third party in circumstances that undermine confidentiality (here, the corporation operating the AI tool) may result in waiver. And that an AI tool is just that – a tool, not an attorney. Accordingly, this decision reinforces the importance of only using properly secured AI tools with confidential or privileged information and for decisions about using AI in the privileged context to be made by those who best appreciate the risks involved: i.e., lawyers.