Zeldes, Needle & Cooper, P.C.

Zeldes, Needle & Cooper represents businesses and individuals in litigation and transactions throughout Connecticut. We trace our origins to 1971, when seven lawyers, all Yale and Harvard Law School graduates, broke away from a larger firm and set up shop on card tables in an office with three secretaries and one telephone. Today, our lawyers, paralegals and supporting staff occupy an entire floor in one of Bridgeport's most modern office buildings.

The efforts and accomplishments of our founders earned for the firm a reputation for creativity and tenacity, and we continue to practice in that style. We welcome the most challenging legal problems, and we are not intimidated by larger adversaries. At the same time, every client is important to us. We believe that we succeed in our goal of providing large firm capabilities and small firm responsiveness.

We provide transactional and litigation counsel to clients ranging from individual entrepreneurs to publicly traded companies. We often have assisted out of state companies in their legal matters with major corporations headquartered in Connecticut. Our attorneys have exceptionally strong academic credentials, and a number of us have federal and state judicial clerkship experience.

The following are examples of the types of matters we have handled and some of the accomplishments of which We are the most proud:

On behalf of a physicians group, we successfully challenged under antitrust laws a hospital’s requirement that intensive care services to critically ill newborns could be provided only by hospital employed neonatologists;

We acted as counsel to the Connecticut General Assembly during proceedings to consider the impeachment of a sitting Probate Judge;

We represent developers of residential and commercial real estate in all aspects of their operations, from property acquisition through zoning and construction to ultimate sales and leases;

We won a federal jury verdict on behalf of a municipality charged with federal civil rights violations in a highly publicized murder case;

We serve as general counsel to closely held business entities in various industries;

On behalf of a high-technology company, we obtained dismissal of an action brought by the State Attorney General claiming violations of the WARN Act;

We represented a group of medical providers in the formation and implementation of an individual practice association (IPA), involving the acquisition of private medical practices, the negotiation of contractual relationships with insurers, and the avoidance of antitrust issues;

For many years, we have represented a multinational pharmaceutical company (headquartered out of state) in employment discrimination, ERISA, wrongful discharge, premises liability, and product liability matters in Connecticut federal and state courts;

We represented a publicly traded company in complex patent litigation against a European competitor, which resulted in an advantageous negotiated resolution;

We obtained substantial damages on behalf of a French company in an arbitration against a US publicly traded company concerning distribution rights to an ophthalmic laser;

We successfully defended a national franchisor in multiple, coordinated arbitrations brought by a number of Connecticut franchisees who challenged the franchisor’s compliance with state and federal law;

We serve as counsel to European distributors of medical devices in their contractual dealings with United States manufacturers;

We prevailed in an arbitration on behalf of a Fortune 500 company defending against an overseas distributor’s claim for damages arising out of its termination;

We won one of the first cases in which a federal court enjoined discriminatory enforcement of municipal zoning regulations against persons with HIV.

It is a point of pride with us that we staff matters leanly. We do not expect our clients to fund the on-the-job training of numerous associates who contribute little to the advancement of the client’s interests. On the other hand, we try to assign work to the least expensive attorney who has the skills required for the task at hand. We value open, honest communication with our clients about the status and progress of matters we are handling, about our bills, and about our performance. We are open to billing arrangements that are not based solely on time expended.

As clients’ needs require, we assemble teams of lawyers and support staff that cross departmental and practice group boundaries. In every case, we strive to provide services of the highest quality at reasonable cost.