---
name: Stephan Kinsella
role: Legal Advisor
---

N. Stephan Kinsella is an attorney in Houston with over twenty-nine years' experience in patent, intellectual property, and general commercial and corporate law. He was previously General Counsel for Applied Optoelectronics, Inc., a partner with Duane Morris, and adjunct law professor at South Texas College of Law. He is the founder and director of the [Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom](http://c4sif.org/), serves on the Advisory Board to the [Open Crypto Alliance](https://www.opencryptoalliance.org/) and other groups and publications; and has published numerous articles and books on intellectual property law and legal topics including *[Against Intellectual Propert*y](https://mises.org/library/against-intellectual-property-0) (Mises Institute, 2008) *[International Investment, Political Risk, and Dispute Resolution: A Practitioner's Guid*e](http://www.kinsellalaw.com/iipr/) (Oxford, 2020), *[Law in a Libertarian World: Legal Foundations of a Free Societ*y](http://www.stephankinsella.com/llw/) (2021), and *[Copy This Book: The Case for Abolishing Intellectual Propert*y](http://www.stephankinsella.com/copy-this-book/) (forthcoming).

He received an LL.M. (international business law) from [King's College London-University of London](http://www.kcl.ac.uk/), a JD from the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at [Louisiana State University](https://lsu.edu/), as well as BSEE and MSEE degrees from LSU. He is licensed to practice law in Texas, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania, and before the US Patent & Trademark Office. His websites are [StephanKinsella.com](http://stephankinsella.com/) and [KinsellaLaw.com](http://kinsellalaw.com/).