Michael Rips Joins New York Office

(November 28, 2005, New York City)—Steptoe & Johnson LLP , a global law firm, announces the addition of Michael Rips to its New York office.  Mr. Rips practices appellate and trial litigation in the areas of intellectual property, art law, securities law, criminal law, and antitrust.

Most recently, Mr. Rips served as an adviser to President Robert J. Kerrey of New School University, where he conceived and developed the plan for a law school at the New School. He was previously with Skadden Arps Slate Meager and Flom, Wright Manning Rips & Maloney, and Grand & Ostrow. 

He has served as outside counsel to museums, art foundations, and artist estates, and organized the development and funding of the DIA art museum in Beacon, New York.  Mr. Rips is also the author of two widely acclaimed memoirs, Pasquale’s Nose and The Face of a Naked Lady.  His op-eds on constitutional and criminal law issues have appeared in the New York Times and the New York Sun.

A fifth-generation Nebraskan, he was awarded a J.D. by the George Washington University Law School in 1982, an M.Litt. in European History by Oxford University in 1979, and a B.A. by Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1976. 

After law school, Mr. Rips clerked for Judge Henry Politz of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Justice William Brennan Jr. of the US Supreme Court.