Fish & Richardson Principal Michael Zoppo Named a 2017 "Rising Star" by New York Law Journal

Fish & Richardson announced today that Michael Zoppo, a principal in the firm's New York office, has been named a "Rising Star" by the New York Law Journal (NYLJ). The NYLJ's Rising Stars list recognizes "New York's most promising lawyers who wield influence in their practice areas in New York and beyond." Zoppo will be honored at an event in New York City on October 17, 2017.

Zoppo has helped build a powerhouse Financial Services practice at Fish that works with banks, insurance companies, national exchanges, and broker-dealers to identify, protect, and enforce their valuable intellectual property (IP) business assets, and to defend them against IP claims by others. In his own practice, Zoppo helps clients build an overall IP strategy, and is often brought in when a client is facing a threat - especially through litigation. One of his biggest recent victories was winning a $1 billion patent dispute for client Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) against International Securities Exchange (ISE) in a fight over whether the technology behind CBOE's Hybrid Trading System infringed ISE's patent. Last year, Zoppo obtained an over $6 million attorneys' fees award for CBOE, one of the largest attorneys' fee awards ever.

Zoppo also oversees the Financial Services Thought Leadership Initiative at Fish, which is tasked with identifying emerging industry trends and finding innovative solutions to IP challenges faced by companies that use financial services technology.

In addition to his busy trial practice, Zoppo maintains an active pro bono practice. In February 2017, he co-led a team that filed an amicus brief in the Federal District Court in Brooklyn on behalf of Letitia James, the Public Advocate for the City of New York, in Darweesh et al. v. Trump et al. The brief supported a challenge to the then-current Executive Order banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. The Public Advocate's brief stated that implementation of the travel ban will cause irreparable harm to the City of New York, as immigrants are essential to the city's economy and cultural diversity.

Zoppo received his J.D. from Rutgers University School of Law in 2004, where he was managing editor of Rutgers Law Review. He received a B.E. in materials engineering (graduating first in his major) and a B.A. in philosophy from Stevens Institute of Technology in 2001.