Dowd is a partner in Dunnington Bartholow & Miller LLP, located in New York City. He is a member of DBM's corporate, intellectual property, litigation and arbitration, and art law practice groups. He has broad commercial litigation experience in both federal and state trial and appellate courts, representing both plaintiffs and defendants in copyright, trademark, domain name owners, and content providers in litigation and arbitration. Representations include conducting bench and jury trials, arbitrations, and administrative proceedings; emergency applications for injunctive relief; quashing subpoenas; and obtaining, enforcing, and collecting judgments. Trust and estates matters include contested probate proceedings through trial and disputes involving heirship and decedents' estates. International litigation includes conducting depositions in Canada, France, and Switzerland; pursuing discovery through letters rogatory; obtaining service of process in foreign countries; and obtaining and challenging foreign expert and legal opinions including cross-examination at trial. Corporate counseling includes corporate and transactional work for entrepreneurial companies including international licensing. Counseling art owners and dealers includes transactional representation, UCC filings, tracking and recovering stolen art, and handling disputes involving provenance, authenticity, and theft. Trademark counseling includes registration and policing and enforcing rights of trademark owners and users. Counseling political candidates includes election day on-site monitoring, poll access challenges, signature challenges, and matters involving election law and political campaigns. Among Dowd’s notable cases are his successful petition for removal of the co-executors of American Tobacco heiress Doris Duke's estate, upholding the first honorary pet trust challenged in New York history and obtaining a $100,000 trust for heiress Doris Duke's dogs.

Dowd is admitted to practice in New York (1993), the U.S. District Court for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York (1994), the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York (2000), U.S. Tax Court (2007), the U.S. Court of International Trade (2006), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (1998), and the U.S. Supreme Court (2000). He received a B.A. in international studies from Manhattan College in 1986 and a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law in 1991, where he was articles editor of the Fordham International Law Journal.

Dowd is a member of the Federal Bar Association; vice president for the Second Circuit (2008–present); editorial board member of Federal Lawyer Magazine; president of the Southern District of New York Chapter (2006–2008); and member of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A., New York State Bar Association, New York County Lawyers' Association, and National Arts Club. Among Dowd’s lectures are "Conflicts of Law in Art Disputes," Art Litigation and Dispute Resolution Institute, New York County Lawyers' Association (2008); "Murder, Mystery and Egon Schiele's Dead City: Swiss Laundering of Stolen Austrian Art," Jewish Museum, Berlin, Germany; and "International Copyright: Foreign Copyrights in U.S. Courts," New York County Lawyers' Association (2008). Dowd is fluent in French (Certificate, Sorbonne Paris France 1985) and Italian (Certificate, Centro Linguistico Dante Alighieri 1991).