Steve is a seasoned, successful federal court trial attorney who practices both intellectual property litigation and white collar defense/internal investigations.
Steve is passionate about protecting client interests and achieving the best outcome. He brings to clients over 35 years of experience in federal courts throughout the United States in criminal and civil cases. In IP litigation, he protects key drivers of business success, including patents, trade secrets and confidential information, trademarks and copyrights. When clients find themselves in the government’s crosshairs, they benefit from his background as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and his drive to provide effective defense against criminal and civil investigations and allegations. In internal investigations, he is driven to find the truth and advise clients how to best address potential problems before they become the subject of full-blown government scrutiny.
Effective representation often requires establishing good working relationships with opponents and Steve prides himself on his ability to work respectfully with opposing counsel. When a case has to be tried, Steve has the judgment and experience to be the trial lawyer of choice. As lead counsel, Steve has tried more than 40 complex federal jury trials to verdict and briefed and argued more than 35 federal appeals including one en banc argument in the Eighth Circuit. In 2014, he was a member of the team that briefed and won the Octane Fitness patent fees case in the U.S. Supreme Court. Remarkably, he has a perfect record of success in trial and on appeal.
White Collar Defense/Internal Investigations. Steve’s deep experience in all federal crimes and with numerous U.S. Attorney’s offices as well as the Department of Justice makes him an excellent choice for criminal representation and internal investigations. He has defended cases involving trade secret theft, fraud and health care fraud. No client he has represented has been charged with a crime. As a prosecutor, his experience includes large domestic and international white collar fraud, tax, federal capital murder and public corruption offenses. As a Supervisor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Steve oversaw a white collar crime unit, a health care fraud unit, an environmental crimes task force, an anti-terrorism task force and a cybercrimes unit. For many years, he was one of the lead federal capital prosecutors in the United States, performed in that role in several federal districts, served on the Attorney General’s Capital Crimes Review Committee and Working Group, and co-authored capital jury instructions in the Eighth Circuit. Now, his vast experience is put to work protecting the business and liberty interests of clients.
IP Litigation. Steve’s prior criminal experience with technology and science helped him easily transition to successfully representing patentees and IP owners as well as accused infringers. To date, no clients he represented have had to pay a dime to an opponent. His patent cases most often involve electronic hardware, computer software, IOT products and automation. In one significant case, a settlement was reached in which a client ended up owning the plaintiff and its asserted patents. In several, he has invalidated the patents asserted against his client including prior to expensive discovery.
In patent litigation throughout the United States, Steve draws on his deep writing and trial experience to investigate facts and identify credible witnesses, develop offensive and defensive strategies for achieving the desired outcome, and reduce diverse, complex technologies to fit the varied expertise and time limitations ever present in federal court. A large part of Steve’s success is: 1) the result of working closely with clients to understand their technologies, products and brands; and 2) efficiently conveying the facts and law to judges and juries. Given the high costs and risks of federal IP litigation, Steve actively seeks early and efficient resolution of disputes.
Federal Judicial Service. Steve’s diverse talents in federal court are recognized by the judges he most often appeared before – he was appointed to serve and continues to serve the bench as a member of the Eastern District of Missouri Federal Practice Committee and as a trustee of the Federal Memorial Practice Trust. In addition, he serves as a Master member of the St. Louis Chapter of the American Inns of Court.