GREGORY M. LIPPER

(202) 996-0919
glipper@lipperlaw.com

Photo of Greg Lipper, with large smile, looking slightly down and away from the camera. Greg is wearing a navy suit, white dress shirt, and red tie.

Greg Lipper was already leaning toward becoming a lawyer when his sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Cohen, told the class an impromptu story about Clarence Darrow’s defense of a client being prosecuted for teaching evolution in a Tennessee public school. Once he learned about the Scopes Monkey Trial—and Darrow’s relentless cross-examination of William Jennings Bryan—Greg was hooked.

Now in his twentieth year as a practicing lawyer, Greg litigates both trials and appeals. He is known for his lively writing, nimble oral advocacy, and ability to explain technical concepts clearly. Greg has extensive experience with criminal defense and investigations, First Amendment and media law, commercial and civil-rights litigation, and appellate and Supreme Court practice—along with many other complex and thorny disputes. In 2020, Washingtonian Magazine named him one of Washington DC's Best Lawyers: Criminal Defense.

Greg has tried cases before judges, juries, and arbitrators. Earlier this year, he won dismissal of a firearms prosecution on the final day of the jury trial, after uncovering a serious Brady violation by prosecutors. Since 2022, he has argued more than a dozen appeals: Recent appellate victories include reversals of murder convictions in two cases, reinstatement of an Innocence Protection Act motion in a third murder case, and reversal of a sanctions award against the plaintiff’s attorney in a federal civil suit.

Greg’s current cases include:

  • Representing the plaintiffs in appellate proceedings arising from their First Amendment challenge to Tennessee’s drag ban.

  • Representing the defendants in a defamation lawsuit brought by an ex-husband against his ex-wife (and her friends) after she publicly revealed his acts of physical abuse during their marriage.

  • Representing a co-defendant charged with murder after a police officer allegedly identified him in a dark and blurry video of the shooting.

  • Representing a CEO and two small businesses appealing a punitive-damages verdict in a contract and fraud lawsuit brought by their former business partner.

  • Representing civil-rights protestors—including a Black Lives Matter protestor and a housing-rights advocate—in appeals of their criminal convictions arising from their respective protests at Black Lives Matter Plaza and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

  • Representing the families of Boeing 737 Max crash victims, as well as law professor Paul Cassell, in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking public records of the Justice Department’s negotiation of a lenient Deferred Prosecution Agreement with Boeing.

  • Representing a news and politics blog in a copyright dispute initiated by a litigious photographer.

Greg's previous experience includes more than five years as Senior Litigation Counsel for Americans United for Separation of Church and State. He began his career at Covington & Burling; he spent the past several years practicing at two small firms.

Greg is admitted in the District of Columbia and California (inactive), as well as in the U.S. Supreme Court; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, and D.C. Circuits; and the U.S. District Courts for the District of Columbia, District of Maryland, and Northern District of Florida.