Stephen Volpe

Stephen Volpe is a general commercial litigator with a focus on representing clients in the entertainment, media, and sports industries in disputes related to copyright, trademark, contracts, and the First Amendment.  Stephen has also represented clients in products liability class actions, white collar investigations, and fraud and conspiracy cases.

Stephen has an active pro bono practice.  He has represented parents in adoption proceedings and a transgender Mexican immigrant in a petition for withholding of removal.  Stephen also leads O’Melveny’s LGBTQ Employee Network in Southern California.

Stephen attended Harvard Law School, where he focused on entertainment, media, and intellectual property law and earned the Dean’s Scholar Prize for his work in “Copyright and Trademark Litigation” and “Entertainment and Media Law.”  Before practicing law, Stephen produced competitions on CBS’s Big Brother, managed CBS’s alternative programming department, and taught third grade in Charlotte, North Carolina with Teach For America.

Experience:

• Representing recording artist and songwriter Kesha in a dispute involving abuse, defamation, and breach of contract claims
• Representing Fox in a trademark dispute related to the breakout hit Empire and its soundtrack
• Representing satellite radio broadcaster in class action lawsuits alleging purported “performance rights” in sound recordings made before 1972
• Representing music management company and its principal in a tortious interference with contract dispute
• Representing footwear brand in a variety of legal disputes, including trademark and trade dress claims related to its television advertising and a multidistrict litigation involving products liability and defect claims
• Representing boxing promoter Top Rank, boxer Manny Pacquiao, and HBO in a multidistrict litigation involving class actions alleging false advertising and consumer protection violations arising out of a pay-per-view boxing match
• Representing American multinational banking and financial services corporation in a lawsuit brought by a former NFL player alleging fraud, conspiracy, and other torts arising out of a third party’s embezzlement of money from bank accounts
• Representing a publicly traded corporation in a white collar investigation involving allegations of false advertising and obstruction of justice

Admissions:

• California

Education:

• Harvard University, J.D.: cum laude
• Harvard University, B.A., Sociology: cum laude