Other Pursuits
“I was raised in New Jersey, studied journalism in Illinois, and was a newspaper reporter in New York covering courts before attending law school in Massachusetts.
“My wife, Libbie, whom I met in college, is a shared services consultant who promotes early childhood care and education; she is also a board director of a foundation for economically disadvantaged children. We have been married since 1980 and live in Westchester County, New York. Our three adult children (Dan, Andy, and Laura) visit periodically as they pursue diverse careers in poetry, statistics, and science journalism—subjects with complexities far beyond my skill and knowledge set and that provide fascinating and animated dinner conversations.
“I have been practicing law since 1980 and joined Epstein Becker Green’s Stamford and New York offices in 1993—however, I took a sabbatical between April 2015 and June 2017 to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer in the country of Georgia, a former Soviet Republic in the Caucasus region of Eurasia that declared its independence from Russia in 1991. Georgia has an ancient culture, fascinating history, and diverse natural beauty, although it is a developing country seeking to become more advanced socially and economically with aspirations to join the European Union (E.U.) and NATO. Those aspirations create great tensions with Russia, which occupies two sections of Georgia by wars in 1992 and 2008.
“The Peace Corps was established by President Kennedy in 1961, and the Peace Corps in Georgia began in 2001. I offered Georgian lawyers trainings and information about U.S. laws concerning human rights, gender equality and all forms of discrimination, since the courts in Georgia will consider U.S. and E.U. law. I was assigned to a center for children with disabilities to help with its organizational development and, also, to train Georgian youth and college students about human rights, employment skills, and financial literacy. I learned to speak Georgian (intermediate level, not fluent); lived in Gori (Joseph Stalin’s birthplace) and some ancient, primitive villages; worked and lived under circumstances far different from ours here; and made what will be lifelong friendships and relationships during that memorable 26-month, life-changing experience.
“Since joining Epstein Becker Green, I have focused on client counseling and litigation encompassing discrimination, restrictive covenants, trade secrets, confidentiality, shareholder and partnership disputes, wage issues, and civil rights violations under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, among many other subjects. I have represented clients in financial services, health care, manufacturing, consumer products, hospitality, marketing, public sector, real estate, and retail, to name a few. I litigated, among other cases, a particularly complicated and hard-fought misappropriation of trade secrets matter involving the engineering and manufacturing of an expensive and unique sensor used to steer supersonic fighter jets and commercial aircraft. Working on that case gave me a keen respect for both the intricacies involved in the engineering and manufacturing of an important and valuable product used worldwide and the business urgency to protect that intellectual property. The case ended in a favorable settlement that afforded our client greatly enhanced business opportunities.
“I am fortunate to have stimulating and challenging cases, insightful clients, and top-notch colleagues who have made working at Epstein Becker Green exciting and fun. I have the added pleasure of being in a firm where we work hard, enjoy our collegiality, laugh often, and take great pride in upholding our firm’s highly regarded reputation.”
— David S. Poppick