[2] Kopyto was born to a Polish Jewish family in a Displaced Persons' camp in Ulm,[3] West Germany immediately following World War II.
Growing up in Toronto, Kopyto was a high-school radical, protesting against mandatory military cadet training as well as hikes in the price of milk.
David which would have allowed him to run against Attorney-General Ian Scott in the 1987 provincial election but he lost the nomination to John Campey.
[6] In the early 1990s, Kopyto was active in the Ontario NDP's Left Caucus which dissented from the government of Bob Rae for being too moderate.
He authored an open letter co-signed by other party dissidents, including three NDP MPPs, opposing Rae's abandonment of left-wing policies such as public auto insurance.
"[7] Kopyto was a member of the Alliance of Non-Zionist Jews in the 1970s[8] and also represented the Canadian Arab Federation in a libel action against The Globe and Mail.
[4] He represented the Gay Alliance Toward Equality before the Supreme Court of Canada in its 1978 lawsuit against the Vancouver Sun for refusing to publish the group's advertisement.
[10] He also initiated a series of actions that sought to establish the principle that a person is entitled to see the information on which a search warrant that affects them is based.
[14] The case became a cause célèbre with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association urging Scott to drop the charge and the Law Union of Ontario setting up a legal defence fund for Kopyto.
"[23] He told the disciplinary committee "Any inaccuracies in the bills I submitted were not intentional and were minimal in nature, I was attempting to reconstruct events which I hadn't recorded properly."
Bencher Thomas J. P. Carey said he was so "fundamentally in disagreement with the majority in Convocation, as well as the Discipline Committee" that he felt compelled to issue the dissent in which he asserted that there was no basis for the Society's initial claims of fraud and that it is notable that the Legal Aid Plan never asked Kopyto to return any of the funds paid to him on the basis of his "inaccurate accounts."
[25] Writer David Primack added to Carey's argument by pointing out that unrelated funds owing to Kopyto, which were frozen during the disbarment case were eventually paid to him in full.
In 2002, he represented Velma Demerson in her successful attempt to obtain compensation from the Ontario government for having jailed her for 12 months in 1939 for being "incorrigible" because she was unmarried, pregnant and living with a Chinese man.
[29] In 2006, a justice of the peace threw Kopyto out of his courtroom because he was dressed in an open neck sports shirt with a clashing jacket.
[29] Kopyto faced a more serious problem after May 2007 when a system of regulating paralegals came into effect in Ontario which places the profession under the jurisdiction of the Law Society of Upper Canada and requires individual paralegals to be approved by the law society and found by it to be of "good character" in order to continue their practice.
In February 2015, the law society's tribunal issued its decision denying Koptyo's application for a paralegal licence over concerns that Kopyto is "ungovernable"[30] though conceding his generosity and devotion to his clients.