Stephen Morrissey

Steve Morrissey is a trial lawyer who has devoted more than twenty years to helping clients win results in complex cases in state and federal courts throughout the country. Morrissey has served as a lead trial lawyer in high-stakes jury trials, bench trials, and arbitrations, and has crafted and implemented successful legal strategies on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants in high-profile cases spanning a broad range of practice areas, including environmental and toxic tort, entertainment, intellectual property and trade secrets, antitrust and unfair competition, fraud and breach of contract, securities, class actions, and other business dispute litigation. In recent years, Morrissey has played a leading role in developing the legal strategy on behalf of the proposed classes of individuals adversely impacted by industrial pollution, including in the Flint Water Crisis litigation in Michigan and in groundbreaking challenges to the contamination of the Cape Fear River area in North Carolina with PFAS “forever chemicals.”

Lawdragon has recognized Morrissey as a top 500 Global Plaintiff Lawyer in 2025 and among the country’s 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers every year since 2019, a designation reserved for the “best of the U.S. plaintiffs’ bar who specialize in representing individual investors and shareholders, as well as businesses and other organizations harmed by corporate misconduct or other failures.”

Updated Oct 2025

• FSG Services LLC. v. Flutter Entertainment. Secured a favorable award for Flutter Entertainment when an arbitrator in New York nearly doubled the exercise price its opponent, FOX Corporation, sought for its option to acquire 18.6% of Flutter’s portfolio company, FanDuel Group. This high stakes, high profile arbitration resulted from FOX’s assertion that it should be entitled to the same price Flutter paid for its share of FanDuel two years before the arbitration took place – $2.1 billion, with an implied company valuation of $11.2 billion. The arbitrator, however, found that FOX’s payment must be based on a substantially higher FanDuel valuation of $20 billion it was hoping for, plus an additional 5% interest per year. At the time of the decision, this equated to a valuation for FanDuel of $22 billion and an option exercise price of $4.1 billion for FOX — nearly twice the amount that FOX argued it should be required to pay. The arbitrator also rejected FOX’s claim that Flutter had not provided commercially reasonable resources to the Fox Bet business.
  
  
• Flint Water Crisis Litigation. Morrissey is a member of the Executive Committee and chairs the Expert Committee in complex litigation stemming from the contamination of the Flint, Michigan water distribution system with highly corrosive water following the April 2014 switch to a new water supply. On behalf of a proposed class of Flint residents, Morrissey has helped shape the legal strategy for challenging the conduct of private engineering firms and government officials and seeking compensation for the injuries resulting from lead poisoning, property damage, and other injuries resulting from the highly corrosive water. To date, Morrissey’s team has secured court-approved settlements valued at $626 million with multiple governmental defendants, including the state of Michigan. Litigation continues against other defendants, including two private engineering firms charged with professional negligence.
  
  
• Lamar v. Beats Electronics, Dr. Dre. and Jimmy Iovine. Morrissey was co-lead counsel in a breach of contract case on behalf of entrepreneur Steven Lamar and his company, Jibe Audio, involving a claim for royalties on the iconic Beats headphones products. In 2018, Morrissey’s trial team won a jury verdict that confirmed Lamar’s right to royalties on Beats headphones and would result in a judgment worth more than $50 million for past damages, interest, ongoing royalties, and attorneys’ fees.
  
  
• Confidential Dispute Between Angel Investors and Blockchain Startup. Represented a group of high-profile Silicon Valley angel investors and preferred shareholders in a cryptocurrency and blockchain startup who claimed rights to share in a distribution of tokens under the corporate certificate and their stock purchase agreement. The dispute arose shortly before the company’s highly anticipated token launch, when the investors discovered that the company founder had distributed millions of tokens to himself and his employees without sharing them with his shareholders. Morrissey was lead counsel in developing a litigation and settlement strategy that resulted in a confidential settlement worth hundreds of millions of dollars. This strategy quickly resolved the dispute and enabled clients to avoid litigation that could have disrupted the token launch, thereby protecting the value of their substantial investments.
  
  
• Peak Hosting v. Machine Zone. Morrissey was co-lead counsel to Peak Hosting in its breach-of-contract and business tort lawsuit against Machine Zone, Inc.—a Silicon Valley giant and purveyor of two of the most popular mobile games, “Mobile Strike” and “Game of War.”

• J.D. - Columbia Law School    
• B.A. - The University of Iowa    
• Law Clerk to the Honorable David M. Ebel - United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit    

• American Bar Association (Litigation and Antitrust Sections)    
• Association of Business Trial Lawyers (Los Angeles Chapter)

• Washington    
• California    
• Texas