Alston & Bird is pleased to announce that Cynthia Cole, partner with the firm’s Privacy, Cyber & Data Strategy Team, has received the 2026 Burton Awards’ “Law360 Distinguished Legal Writing Award.”
The Burton Awards, a national program co-sponsored by the American Bar Association and held in association with the Library of Congress, recognize excellence in legal writing. Winners are selected by an academic board composed of leading law school professors and legal scholars.
Cynthia was recognized for her co-authored article, “Storytelling and the Art of Creativity: Who Holds the Pen?,” which was named among the most exceptional legal writing works published over the past year. This distinction underscores her broad expertise in the international legal nuances of artificial intelligence and intellectual property.
Cynthia focuses her practice on advising clients across the technology, life sciences, industrial, energy, media, and consumer sectors on structuring and negotiating technology transactions, intellectual property arrangements, data-driven collaborations, and cloud and platform agreements. Her work frequently involves emerging and data-intensive technologies, including AI, with a focus on governance, contracting, and deployment considerations.