Stephen J. Zralek

In addition to representing clients from within Tennessee, Stephen is routinely called on by clients, lawyers, and in-house counsel from other cities and countries to represent them here or to serve as local counsel across Tennessee’s state and federal courts. Upon graduating from law school, Stephen served as a judicial clerk to the Honorable Thomas A. Wiseman, Jr., of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.

Stephen is a leader in the field of IP litigation. He currently serves as Chair of the Intellectual Property Committee for the International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC) and won the IADC’s 2023 President’s Award for his contributions to that organization. He previously served as Chair of the Copyright Litigation Committee within the American Bar Association’s IP Section. He is a frequent speaker and author on issues in intellectual property litigation, business litigation, and litigating before the Tennessee Business Court. He has been quoted by USA Today, Managing IP, Young Entrepreneur, and IPWatchdog and featured in the ABA Journal. He co-authored “The Pro-IP Act: Another Weapon Against a Failing Economy,” published by the ABA’s Landslide magazine, as well as “Race is On to Recapture Copyrights,” published by The Tennessean, and co-authored an article published by Law360. Fellow attorneys routinely recognize him as one of the Best of the Bar within Nashville and the Southeast in peer-review rankings.

He has presented at conferences hosted by, among others, the IADC, the Americana Music Festival, Music Biz, the American Bar Association, the Tennessee Bar Association, the Nashville Bar Association, the PR Society of America, the Nashville Business Journal, Lipscomb University, Vanderbilt University, the Davidson County Judges, the House Democratic Caucus, PodCamp, and Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts.

Through his active participation in TAGLaw, Stephen has developed personal relationships with lawyers around the country and the world. These valuable ties help the firm’s clients and attorneys when they need assistance with both business and litigation, knowing that Stephen can instantly connect them with trusted advisors who have been vetted ahead of time. Stephen represents Spencer Fane at TAG’s international conferences, and he is honored to serve as TAGLaw’s main contact for the Spencer Fane Tennessee offices.

In the community, Stephen has served on and chaired many non-profit boards in Nashville and has been a strong advocate his entire career for diversity and inclusion in both the legal profession and the city of Nashville. Examples include publishing an article in 1999, which inspired the Nashville Bar Association to amend its Creed of Professionalism to be more inclusive of non-white and female lawyers; serving on the steering committee of Nashville for All of Us in 2009, which defeated a referendum that would have prohibited any language other than English in communications by Nashville’s government; leading a class action of primarily Black student-athletes to protect their right of publicity in a 2014 lawsuit; chairing the board of Nashville’s leading Latino non-profit, Conexión Américas, from 2013 to 2015; and serving as lead counsel for sexual abuse survivor Michelle Martin in her successful pursuit of clemency from the Tennessee Governor in 2019. He is a graduate of Leadership Nashville.