Stephen Steinberg

Stephen C. Steinberg is a Partner of Bartko Pavia LLP, Co-Chair of the firm’s Intellectual Property Practice, and Co-Chair of the firm’s Privacy Practice. Steve is a trial lawyer, specializing in intellectual property, privacy, and complex business litigation, including claims for trademark and copyright infringement, theft of trade secrets, privacy issues related to data sharing online and data breaches, claims between founders of technology startups, and other complex business disputes in both federal and state courts. He has represented clients in numerous trials, where he has won victories for both plaintiffs and defendants. Steve is also highly regarded for his service to the legal community in the Bay Area and beyond, as he currently serves as Secretary of the Northern California chapter of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers, and previously served as Chair of an American Bar Association committee and President (youngest ever) of the Contra Costa County Bar Association.

In the field of IP litigation, Steve has litigated trademark and copyright cases for video game, e-commerce, consumer product, and specialty food companies, as well as a leading font designer. He has litigated patent cases concerning mobile phone accessories, web browsers, light emitting diodes (LEDs), networking technologies such as Power-over-Ethernet and WiFi, and power conversion technologies. Steve has also represented numerous technology companies in prosecuting and defending against claims for theft of trade secrets, breach of fiduciary duties, interference, and related claims, as well as cases for breach of contract against suppliers and disputes arising out of mergers and acquisitions.

In the field of privacy litigation, Steve has defended multiple healthcare systems against class actions related to website technologies, such as analytics, pixels, and cookies, and related to data breaches, including claims involving PHI under HIPAA, “medical information” under CMIA, wiretapping under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA), as well as other statutory, common law and constitutional claims.

Steve has also handled numerous cases involving disputes between co-founders of startups and between founders and their former companies.

Before joining Bartko Pavia, Steve was Counsel at Vasquez, Benisek and Lindgren / Morgan Miller Blair and an associate at Morrison & Foerster LLP, where he handled a wide array of business disputes.

While in law school, Steve served as an extern for the Honorable Chief Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco, and as an extern for the Honorable Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma of the Hong Kong High Court in Hong Kong.