STEPHEN M. HUDSPETH
Senior Advisor and Senior Counsel
Mr. Hudspeth is an accomplished lawyer specializing in commercial civil and white-collar criminal litigation and international law who served as a partner at Coudert Brothers in New York City beginning in 1986 and as the head of its litigation department from 1993 until his retirement from the firm at year-end 2004. Today, Mr. Hudspeth is an adjunct professor teaching graduate courses in law and ethics at the University of Connecticut School of Business on its Stamford Campus, as well as an outspoken voice in his community through his column in The Wilton Bulletin entitled “A View from Glen Hill.” The column addresses local issues such as school administration and town budgets as well as national matters and is available online at http://www.wiltonbulletin.com.
Mr. Hudspeth was born in 1947 in Pittsburgh, PA, and was raised in the Philadelphia area. He attended Yale University and graduated with combined bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics, awarded magna cum laude after four years of study, in 1968. On graduation, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and eventually rose to the rank of captain, serving until 1981 with all but two of those years in reserve status.
Mr. Hudspeth earned a J.D. degree from Yale Law School in 1971 and entered legal practice as an associate at Lord, Day & Lord in New York City, rising to partner there in 1979. At Lord, Day, he worked closely with former U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell and former Director of Operations of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice Gordon Spivack. Mr. Hudspeth was identified in a 1981 American Lawyer article as one of a half-dozen rising young stars in commercial litigation in New York City. While working full-time at Lord, Day and until 1983, Mr. Hudspeth also taught evening courses in economics and in business law as an adjunct assistant professor at Wagner College.
In 1986, Mr. Hudspeth became a partner at Coudert Brothers (along with his partner and mentor Gordon Spivack), and he was elected to its executive committee in 1990 serving on that committee until he took over as chair of its litigation department across the firm’s 26 offices worldwide in 1993 — in which position he continued until his retirement from the firm. Mr. Hudspeth also chaired the firm’s ethics and conflicts committee and its pro bono committee from the early 1990s until his retirement.
From 2005 to 2008, Mr. Hudspeth was a Lecturer in Law and Becton Fellow at the Yale School of Management, and from 2009 to 2014, he taught at the Yale Law School. He is a member of the bars of the States of New York, Connecticut, and Maine and of the Commonwealths of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, as well as of various federal courts around the country including the U.S. Supreme Court. He is the co-author of Transfer Pricing Under U.S. Law and of a chapter in the multi-volume treatise Commercial Litigation in the New York Courts and has been a contributor to a variety of law reviews and professional journals with articles covering everything from the patent/antitrust interface to the nature and protection of economic interests in China.
In his hometown of Wilton, CT, Mr. Hudspeth served as chair of the town’s Council on Ethics from 2007-2014 and also served on a CT State Legislative Task Force on Municipal Ethics Reform for one year during that period. He received the Wilton YMCA’s Distinguished Citizen Award in 2015.
Mr. Hudspeth has also served from 2007 to date as Chair of the Wilton Interfaith Action Committee, a consortium of the congregants of eleven Wilton faith institutions, Christian, Hindu, Jewish and Muslim, working together for the good in a variety of projects ranging from meal-packaging for children in need internationally to refugee resettlement in Wilton.
Mr. Hudspeth was selected for inclusion in Marquis Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the East, and Who’s Who in American Law, as well as the 1987 to 1988 volume of Who’s Who of Emerging Leaders in America and holds Who’s Who’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Represented one of the largest Chinese corporations, Sinochem, in a case through trial and appeal, decided in Sinochem’s favor by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007.
2021: represented employer in employee termination case through successful grant of summary judgment that ended the litigation.
June 2014 to April 2016: led two-month long trial in federal court in Newark, NJ of an antitrust and telecom case involving broadcast licenses where prior large firm had had to withdraw at the last minute and new trial counsel was needed on three weeks’ notice before trial; successfully settled as to one defendant; argued appeal from trial court decision before U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on the adverse decision with respect to the other defendant.
2018-2019: represented parties in an estate litigation through briefing on major motions and successful mediation among the legatees.
2016 to date: represented multiple persons in separate employment-termination cases each of which was successfully mediated.
- Complex Commercial Civil Litigation and Arbitration
- Antitrust Litigation and Merger, Joint Venture and General Antitrust Counseling
- Securities and Commodities Litigation and Counseling
- Patent and Trademark Litigation
- White-Collar Criminal Litigation
- Employment Counseling and Litigation
- Internal Investigations
Yale Law School, J.D., 1971.
Yale University, B.A. and M.A. degrees in Economics awarded simultaneously after four years of study, 1968; magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa.
Mr. Hudspeth is admitted to practice in CT, MA, ME, NY, and PA and in various federal courts around the country including the U.S. Supreme Court.
University of Connecticut Graduate School of Business: Adjunct Professor, 2016 to date, teaching courses on business law & ethics, on privacy, cyber & IP law, on financial risk management, on international business law, and on securities law; recipient of the University Provost’s 2018 excellence in teaching award.
Yale Law School: Clinical Visiting Lecturer in Law, Fall 2009 through Spring 2014 (“Visiting” is the designation Yale Law School uses for its part-time faculty), initially stepping in for year to a clinical program when a senior professor went on his first sabbatical in 25 years and then covering thereafter (following that professor’s announcement of his retirement after his return from sabbatical) during the 4 years before his permanent faculty replacement was appointed & for 1 transitional semester thereafter.
Yale School of Management: Lecturer in Law and Becton Fellow, Fall, 2005 through Spring, 2008, teaching courses in business law and nonprofit law to M.B.A. students.
Union Theological Seminary, affiliated with Columbia University: Trustee, 2000-2008; Lecturer in Law, 2008 through 2012 (trustees are not permitted to teach) teaching its law and social justice course, focusing on substantive public interest law, and its course on church, temple, and nonprofit administration (with cross-registration from Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia University students).
Coudert Brothers LLP: International law firm headquartered in N.Y.C. with 26 offices in the U.S., Europe (including Russia), and Asia (including three offices in China); Retired, December 31, 2004; Partner, 1986 through 2004; Executive Committee member, 1990-1993; Chair of (firm-wide) Litigation Department, 1993 through 2004; Chair of Pro Bono Committee, 1993 through 2004; Chair of Ethics and Conflicts Committee, 1994 through 2004; Chair of Diversity Committee, from inception in 2003 through 2004.
Lord, Day & Lord: Partner, 1979-86; Management Committee member, 1983-86; Associate, to 1979 (with reserve military service after active duty: Army Corps of Engineers, to Captain; instructor at Army Engineer Officers School, Ft. Belvoir, VA).
Wagner College, 1973-83, adjunct assistant professor while working for law firm, teaching first economics and then business law one evening per week.
Yale College, 1969-71: teaching a section of the general introductory one-year micro- and macroeconomics course, while attending the Yale Law School, to around 30 students meeting for 3 hours per week; each section met entirely separately for the year – there were no combined lectures; his section received the highest rating each year in the annual student course evaluation publication.
Author of numerous articles on subjects in the law including “The Nature and Protection of Economic Interests in the People’s Republic of China,” Albany Law Review (1982); “Developments in the Law on the Patent/Antitrust Interface,” The Journal of Law and Commerce, reprinted in the Corporate Counsel’s Annual (1984) as one of the most significant business-related law review articles of the year; “How Transactionally Focused Clinics Can Assist in Advancing Civil Society,” The Johns Hopkins University Journal of Human Rights and Civil Society, Fall, 2013; “Will Preparation for Persons Possibly Impaired by Mental Incapacity,” Maine Bar Journal, 37:242, Jan., 2022. Co-author of the book, Transfer Pricing under U.S. Law (IBC Financial Pub. Co., 1995); co-author of a chapter in the multi-volume treatise Commercial Litigation in the New York Courts (West Pub. Co., 2003); co-author of the White Paper, “Ethics and the Nonprofit” (Commonfund Institute, 2008, rev’d 2013); Hearst Connecticut Media editorial columnist, with column appearing in The Wilton Bulletin from 2004 to date.
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