Building and Defending Your Online Reputation as an Attorney

Daniel A. Powell, Managing Partner | Minc Law

Daniel A. Powell is Managing Partner at Minc Law. He focuses his practice on defamation, online reputation management, content removal, and unmasking anonymous online attackers representing businesses and high-profile individuals whose reputations have been damaged online. With more than 15 years of litigation experience, he has served as lead counsel at every level of judicial proceeding and obtained seven-figure trial verdicts, including extraordinary awards of punitive damages and attorney fees. His commentary on internet liability and online reputation has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Business Insider, VICE, and Cook County Record.

• Education & Credentials

Daniel received a Bachelor of Arts in History and Political Science from Greensboro College. He earned his J.D. from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, receiving the National Scholar Award and Outstanding Student Award and serving on the Moot Court Board of Governors. He is admitted before the Ohio Supreme Court, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. District Courts for the Northern and Southern Districts of Ohio.

• Recognition & Leadership

Daniel was named Partner at Minc Law in 2023 after serving as the firm’s Managing Attorney, where he helped build and expand its processes and knowledge base. He is a Marquis Who’s Who Honored Listee and a Lorman Distinguished Faculty Member, and he has been recognized by the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland’s Community Commitment Honor Society for his pro bono service.

• Professional Involvement

Daniel regularly presents on removing defamation and damaging content from the internet. His legal analysis has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Business Insider, VICE, the Cleveland Jewish News, the Cook County Record, and Mel Magazine. He is a member of the William K. Thomas American Inn of Court and the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association and serves as a new-lawyer mentor in the Supreme Court of Ohio’s Lawyer to Lawyer Mentoring Program.

• Experience

Daniel represents clients in state and federal courts as lead counsel in jury trials, bench trials, arbitrations, mediations, administrative hearings, and appellate proceedings. He consistently removes damaging, and defamatory content and causes its de-indexing from Google and other search engines and has unmasked anonymous authors of fake reviews through forensic and investigative tactics.

Michael Pelagalli, Lead Litigator | Minc Law

Michael Pelagalli is a Partner at Minc Law. He focuses his practice on protecting the reputations of individuals and businesses attacked online. He has represented large corporations, executives, medical professionals, small businesses, and individuals in a wide range of defamation matters, combining deep litigation and jury trial experience to remove defamatory content across the internet and establish monetary damages in courts across the country. As lead counsel for both plaintiffs and defendants, he handles all aspects of the litigation, trial, and appeals process, and has secured favorable jury verdicts, six-figure settlements, and injunctive and other equitable relief for his clients.

• Education & Credentials

Michael received a Bachelor of Science from Miami University’s Farmer School of Business and earned his J.D. from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, where his moot court team were 2014–2015 Nationals Competition Region 6 Champions. He is admitted before the Ohio Supreme Court and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio and has been licensed in Ohio since 2015.

• Recognition & Leadership

Michael has been recognized by Super Lawyers as an Ohio “Rising Star” from 2022 through 2025, an honor reserved for roughly 2.5% of attorneys in the state and named to Best Lawyers’ “Ones to Watch in America” from 2024 through 2026. He became a Partner at Minc Law after building a proven track record in and out of the courtroom.

• Professional Involvement

Michael presents regularly on internet reputation and litigation topics, including an on-demand CLE for myLawCLE on subpoenaing social media and phone records, a Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association program on the defamation cases against Alex Jones, and a Parma Bar Association program on the ethics and practice of handling online reputation issues. He has been featured on The Social Media Lawcast and in Crain’s Cleveland Business and is a member of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association.

• Experience

Michael identifies and unmasks anonymous authors of defamatory websites and reviews, obtains sixfigure judgments against them, and secures the deletion of false content from outlets including ESPN, Barstool Sports, Change.org, and major review platforms such as Google, Yelp, Ripoff Report, WebMD, and Vitals. He has reclaimed client domains through WIPO’s Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy and obtained the removal of unauthorized recordings and defamatory posts across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, and TikTok.

SESSION 1 – Building and Maintaining Your Online Reputation | 1:00pm – 2:00pm

Establish a professional presence in traditional and AI-powered search — website, directories, and review platforms. Understand why ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews shape first impressions before a prospect calls and encourage positive feedback while complying with new FTC review rules.

BREAK | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

SESSION 2 – Defending Your Online Reputation | 2:10pm – 3:10pm

Respond to negative reviews without breaching ABA Model Rule 1.6 or Formal Opinion 496, using compliant, not sanctionable, replies. Choose public or private responses — appealing to platform, client, or legal demands — and know when defamation litigation is the only remedy.