Steve Zipperstein

Education

• University of California, Davis, J.D., Order of the Coif, 1983
• University of California, Los Angeles, B.A., 1979

Steve Zipperstein has practiced law for nearly 37 years in California, Washington D.C., New York, and New Jersey. During his career, Steve has worked as a law firm litigator, a federal prosecutor and Justice Department official, and as a corporate General Counsel.

Steve most recently served for six years as the Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel of BlackBerry Ltd., the Canadian smartphone and software company, where he was responsible for worldwide legal, government relations, public policy, compliance, regulatory, corporate security, and corporate real estate for BlackBerry. He also served as the company’s Chief Risk Officer and oversaw the internal audit function.

Steve previously served for more than seven years as the General Counsel of Verizon Wireless from 2003 through 2011, and as a Deputy General Counsel of Verizon Communications Inc. from 2000 through 2003. Prior to the formation of Verizon Communications, he served as a Deputy General Counsel for GTE Corporation.

Prior to joining GTE and Verizon, Steve served as a federal prosecutor in the United States Attorney’s office in Los Angeles for more than nine years. He tried more than a dozen federal felony jury trials (including the first-ever prosecution against the owners of a failed savings and loan during the late 1980s) and argued 23 cases before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Between 1992 and 1993, Steve served on detail at the Justice Department as Special Counsel to former Criminal Division Chief Robert S. Mueller III. Steve continued serving in the front office of the Criminal Division at Main Justice following President Clinton’s election, returning to the U.S. Attorney’s office in late 1993 as the Chief Assistant United States Attorney. Attorney General Janet Reno appointed Steve as her Counselor during the 1995 congressional hearings regarding the 1993 events at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.

Steve graduated from UCLA with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science with highest honors, and received his law degree in 1983 from UC Davis, where he graduated Order of the Coif and served as a Law Review Editor and member of the Moot Court Board. He is also a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy and serves as an Honorary Trustee of the Mexican-American Bar Foundation. He previously served on the Board of Trustees of the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, New Jersey and the Executive Committee of the Friends of the Institute for Advanced Study, also in Princeton.

Steve teaches in the Department of Public Policy and in the Global Studies program at UCLA, at the Department of History at UC Santa Barbara, and is a Visiting Professor at Tel Aviv University Law School. He is also a Senior Fellow at the UCLA Center for Middle East Development, and is the author of Law and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Trials of Palestine (Routledge 2020).

Affiliations

• Member, American Law Institute
• Life Fellow, American Bar Foundation
• Member, Pacific Council on International Policy
• Senior Fellow, University of California, Los Angeles Center for Middle East Development
• Honorary Trustee, Mexican-American Bar Foundation
• Former Member, Board of Trustees, McCarter Theatre Center
• Former Member, Executive Committee of the Friends of the Institute for Advanced Study

Publications

Author, Law and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Trials of Palestine (Routledge, 2020)

Co-Author, “Here Comes a Wave of Data Privacy Litigation,” Daily Journal, 2020

Author, “Diaries reveal overwhelmed British officials in Palestine wanted to go home,” The Times of Israel, 2020

Author, “Uncovered, Polish Jews’ pre-Holocaust plea to Chamberlain: Let us into Palestine,” The Times of Israel, 2020

Author, “Revealed: An Arab prince’s secret proposal to sell the Western Wall to the Jews,” The Times of Israel, 2020

Author, Victim-as-Defendant, Defendant-as-Victim: Role Reversal Defenses and Departures at Sentencing, 7 Fed. Sent. R. 190, 1995

Author, Don’t Junk the Guidelines, At Least for Now, 5 Fed. Sent. R. 232, 1995

Author, Certain Uncertainty: Appellate Review and the Sentencing Guidelines, 66 S. Cal. L. Rev. 621, 1992

Author, Relevant Conduct and Plea Bargaining, 4 Fed. Sent. R. 223, 1992

Co-Author, Comparative Fault and Intentional Torts: Doctrinal Barriers and Policy Considerations, 24 Santa Clara L. Rev. 1, 1984, reprinted in 34 Defense L. Journal 383, 1985

Co-Author, Models of Israeli Social Analysis, 58 Journal of Jewish Communal Service 24, 1981

Co-Author, Antecedents of Jewish Ethnic Relations in Israel, 42/43 Forum 15, 1981, reprinted in Spanish, 6 Rumbos 61, 1982