Steven D. Zansberg

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For the past quarter century, Steve has represented media companies, online publishers, and individuals in defending claims based on content, fighting subpoenas, and seeking access to government information and proceedings. He has represented the national news media in connection with coverage of such events as the Aurora theater shooting case and the Oklahoma City bombing trials. He secured access to public records related to the murder of JonBenét Ramsey and the mass shooting at Columbine High School. Steve also litigates copyright and trademark matters. Steve has also defended dozens of defamation and invasion of privacy cases in both state and federal courts across the nation. He has successfully briefed and argued appeals to the Colorado Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth and 10th Circuits.

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Steve is an active leader in the national media law bar. He is a past Chair of the American Bar Association’s Forum on Communications Law, and has chaired several other committees within the ABA and the Media Law Resource Center. Steve also serves as the President of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, which educates about and promotes greater transparency in state and local governments.

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Steve has taught media law and internet law at the University of Colorado and at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law.

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Prior to becoming a lawyer, Steve was a freelance documentary producer at the public television station in San Francisco.

Steve was a partner at the highly regarded First Amendment boutique law firm Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz, which merged with Ballard Spahr in October 2017.   He launched his solo practice in January 2021.

• Obtained the first dismissal of a libel suit against a newspaper under Colorado's anti-SLAPP statute, passed in 2019.  The court found that the statements at issue, ciricizing a freelance writer's decision not to cover the annual high school play,  were either protected opinion or substantially true.

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• Obtained a Writ of Review from California's Supreme Court directing the Court of Appeal immediately to address the merits of an open records dispute brought by an investigative reporter against the California Public Utilities Commission.   The Court rejected PUC's claim that records requesters must wait for months or years, exhausting internal admistrative appeals, before having access to the courts.

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• Obtained dismissal under Colorado's anti-SLAPP Act, of a defamation lawsuit brought by anti-abortion activists against a book author for labeling their campaign to discredit Planned Parenthood  "fake news" that delibertately misrepresented the actual facts.  The court held the challenged publications were substantially true and therefore could not serve as the basis for a libel claim.

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• Successfully defended the Denver Post and KUSA-TV in a libel suit brought by a convicted felon who disputed the details of a press release from the District Attorney's Office announcing the jury's verdict.  Colorado's Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal under the "fair report privilege."

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• Successfully defended Westword weekly newspaper in a defamation action brought by the former head of Emergency Medicine at Denver’s Children’s Hospital. The plaintiff claimed that Westword defamed him in two articles that reported a woman’s allegations that he had harassed her six years earlier. The court held that because the newspaper accurately reported the woman’s allegations, the challenged articles were substantially true.

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• Successfully defended the operator of an online news publication, Examiner.com, in obtaining dismissal, under California’s anti-SLAPP statute, of libel claims brought by Hollywood celebrity Andrew Keegan. The court held that Keegan could not show that the news report at issue, which discussed a government raid on his new age church, was published with actual malice.

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• Successfully defended Clarity Media Group in obtaining an appellate decision affirming summary judgment on 75 copyright infringement claims brought by two photography licensing agencies. The claims were premised on celebrity photos posted to the Examiner.com website by paid third-party contributors. Finding that the photos had been “stored at the direction of users” of the website, the Tenth Circuit held Clarity was immune from all copyright infringement claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

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• Successfully defended The Discovery Channel in a suit arising from an episode of the documentary TV program Homicide Hunter, which depicted the plaintiff’s involvement in a gang-related altercation that resulted in a 14-year-old’s death. The trial court dismissed all of the plaintiff’s defamation, emotional distress, and invasion of privacy claims, finding that the program was substantially true.

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• Successfully defended The Denver Post and its reporter in a libel case brought by a former City Council candidate based on a report that the candidate was “caught up in a plagiarism charge.” Colorado’s Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of all claims, ruling that the newspaper’s report was both substantially true and not defamatory.

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• Successfully represented A&E Television Networks in obtaining summary judgment on libel claims premised on the Gangland: Aryan Brotherhood program. The Tenth Circuit affirmed the dismissal, holding that calling the plaintiff a "member" of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang ,when he "merely conspired with the Brotherhood in a criminal enterprise," is not actionable because it is substantially true.

Yale Law School (J.D. 1994)

Stanford University (B.A. 1982) (with honors)

Colorado

California

U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits

U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California

U.S. District Court for the Central District of California

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois

U.S. Supreme Court

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