Chris is a Managing Director at Fortress IP Finance Group and is responsible for identifying and securing new investment opportunities for Fortress. He uses his 20+ years of experience in IP, law and finance to maximize value and return on investment for Fortress. Prior to Fortress, Chris was a partner at Robins Kaplan LLP in the Intellectual Property and Technology Litigation Group. He represented plaintiffs and defendants in high-stakes IP and business disputes. He represented companies of all sizes – Fortune 100, small and mid-sized, and sole proprietorships – as well as individual inventors and universities. He tried several patent cases to verdict, including a patent trial win that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.Chris has been nationally recognized for his “superior client service” and as a “trailblazer” in intellectual property law. In 2018, he was named an “Intellectual Property Trailblazer” by the National Law Journal. In 2015, Chris was named a “BTI Client Service All Star.” Chris was noted for being “very good at bringing a business understanding, as well as a technical understanding, and then meshing those two areas together for clients.” The BTI honor placed him among the “cream of the crop litigators” in the country, according to Law360. While in private practice, Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) named Chris to the IAM Patent 1000 for eight consecutive years (2014-2021). IAM called Chris a “magician” in monetizing patent portfolios. IAM also reported that he is “an outstanding counsellor” who uses “exceptional diligence” to “mine portfolios, stress-test use cases, and build litigation strategies.” While at Fortress, Chris has been named to the 2022-2025 editions of IAM Strategy 300: The World’s Leading IP Strategists, and an IAM Strategy Global Leader, identifying individuals who are leaders in developing and implementing world-class IP value creation programs. For 2023, Chris was recognized as the “Lawyer of the Year” for Patent Litigation in the Minneapolis region, by The Best Lawyers in America.