STEPHEN E. KAPNIK

Civil, Commercial,
Personal, and Civil
Rights Litigation

Stephen Kapnik studied at six universities, including Yale, where he earned a J.D. in 1976. He worked with youth and poor people, but it was his work with the Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee on the Pine Ridge Sioux Indian Reservation that inspired him to pursue his work in civil rights litigation. He opened the first legal clinic in Colorado, serving the unmet needs of a specific niche - the middle class.

Mr. Kapnik has more than twenty-eight years of trial and appellate practice in criminal, civil, matrimonial disputes, and complex litigation. He has represented clients before all state and federal courts in Colorado and several other states, and the federal Court of Claims in Washington, D.C., before federal and administrative agencies, and before “private courts” such as the NASD, the AAA, and other arbitrators.

The major complaints about litigation through trial are its ever-increasing expense and delay. Mr. Kapnik has extensive experience in helping clients evaluate and economically resolve their disputes, through negotiation, mediation, arbitration, alternative dispute resolution, and trial.

Mr. Kapnik litigates disputes involving civil rights, employment, personal injury, consumer protection, matrimonials, real estate, corporate finance (and dissolution) and securities, and intellectual property disputes.

Mr. Kapnik was a founding director and officer of the Colorado Association of Non-Profit Organizations (CANPO, now the Colorado Nonprofit Association) and founding director and president of its for-profit subsidiary, CANPO Administrative Services, Inc. (CANPO ASI, now Nonprofit Resources); founding president and director of the Colorado Literacy Assistance Center; a founding director of Kabbalah Experience, and a long-term officer and director of the Community Resource Center. Mr. Kapnik often advises non-profits on incorporation and obtaining 501(c)(3) status, board and employee relationships, leases, and other legal matters.