Cooper Spinelli is a member of the Litigation Department and part of the firm’s Employment & Labor Group. His practice focuses on trade secrets and restrictive covenants, employee mobility and executive disputes, whistleblower claims, and general business litigation.

Cooper has represented clients in both affirmative and defensive trade secret misappropriation and employee mobility cases, including cases involving related IP issues. Cooper has, for example, represented a Fortune 50 company in prosecuting an employee-raiding and computer-fraud case against former high-level executives and managers, resulting in a favorable settlement. Cooper also defended a North American provider of IT solutions and services in a series of putative trade secret and employee mobility cases, helping oversee defensive and affirmative litigation across multiple state and federal jurisdictions. And on behalf of a leading multi-cloud security and application management company, Cooper is defending and has helped secure an initial dismissal of a 12-defendant, 26-cause-of-action case in federal court concerning claims of copyright infringement, fraud, and tortious interference based on alleged conduct in Russia and California.

In addition, Cooper has represented companies in highly sensitive matters involving involuntary and negotiated departures of chief executive and other senior officers.

Cooper also regularly advises innovative startup companies on a range of employment matters, including restrictive covenant and employee mobility issues, at various stages of their lifecycle.

Cooper has also contributed to papers and leading treatises addressing trade secrets, employee mobility, and other related issues, including chapters for leading BNA treatises Trade Secrets: A State-by-State Survey, Covenants Not to Compete, Employee Duty of Loyalty, and Tortious Interference in the Employment Context.

Before joining the firm, Cooper was an employment and litigation associate at an AmLaw 100 law firm. Before that, he clerked for the Hon. Steven B. Berlin at the Department of Labor, Office of Administrative Law Judges in San Francisco.

Cooper received his J.D. magna cum laude from American University Washington College of Law, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif. During law school, Cooper was a senior editor on the executive board for the Administrative Law Review, the official law journal of the American Bar Association Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice.

Cooper received a B.A. with distinction from the University of California, Berkeley.