Etsy general counsel Sarah Feingold is likely the only in-house lawyer we know who wields a crème brulée torch to fashion fine metal jewelry, which she sells on the website operated by her employer. Five years ago this week, Feingold took up with the Brooklyn-based e-commerce site for hand-crafted goods, ranging from woolen slippers and wooden jigsaw puzzles to stylish iPad sleeves. She was the seventeenth employee when she joined, and now the company that did more than $525 million in sales last year has more than 250 employees and 800,000 active online shops.
Having made jewelry since her ‘tween years, during college Feingold started thinking about how intellectual property applied to the craft. While working at a firm in Rochester, New York, she lectured to local artist groups on IP and started selling her wares on Etsy. When Feingold realized the company didn’t have in-house counsel, she pitched the founder with a smattering of company polices that she had redlined, her theories on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and her understanding of Etsy’s artist community. She was hired on the spot.
