Gibson Dunn

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With more than 1,900 attorneys across 10 countries, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher is a force. Among the top firms in the country, Gibson Dunn is well-known for its litigation and trial work—especially its bustling Appellate Litigation and Securities Litigation practices—as well as its top-notch antitrust, M&A, white collar, transnational, private equity, and real estate work.

Tinseltown and Beyond

Gibson Dunn was formed through a partnership between John Bicknell and Walter Trask in 1890. Seven years later, Judge James Gibson joined the firm. The trio joined forces with William Dunn, a former Los Angeles city attorney, and Albert Crutcher, a former assistant city attorney, to create the largest law firm in Los Angeles at the time. During the 20th century, the firm expanded to the East Coast, Europe, and Asia, and while it still has five offices in California alone, Gibson is truly a global firm with 21 offices around the world.

Litigation Hat Trick—Plus One

Gibson Dunn is perhaps best known for its Litigation practice. In fact, the firm has been named four times as the Litigation Department of the Year by The American Lawyer, in 2010, 2012, 2016, and 2020, and was a finalist in this biennial competition in 2014, 2018, and 2022. The firm sits comfortably atop its perch as a top five firm for litigation in Vault’s rankings. Gibson Dunn’s litigation subpractices are vast and include Antitrust; Betting and Gaming; FCA/Qui Tam; Intellectual Property; FCPA; Environmental Law; Government Contracts; Labor and Employment; Securities Litigation; and White Collar Defense and Investigations.

Notably, one practice sets Gibson Dunn apart: Appellate Litigation. The firm was the long-term reigning No. 1 firm in Vault’s Appellate Litigation rankings and continues to sit near the top of the rankings. Some of the firm’s notable SCOTUS cases are Perry v. Brown, in which firm partner Ted Olson delivered arguments in favor of overturning Proposition 8; Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, in which the Court held that corporations have a First Amendment right to engage in political speech; and Wal-Mart v. Dukes, in which the Supreme Court, in what many consider to be the most important class action opinion in a decade, unanimously reversed the Ninth Circuit’s certification of the biggest employment discrimination case in history.

Gibson Dunn isn’t only about litigation, however. The firm is among the top 20 firms in Vault’s General Corporate Practice ranking. In recent years, Gibson lawyers advised MetroPCS, T-Mobile, and Citigroup on billion-dollar mergers. The firm’s corporate transactions practice encompasses several practice groups, including Capital Markets, Global Finance, Mergers and Acquisitions, Private Equity, and Securities Regulation and Corporate Governance. The firm also consistently ranks highly for its real estate and other practices, reaching a No. 1 ranking nationwide for Real Estate.

Set Them Free

A hallmark of Gibson Dunn’s practice is its free market assignment system through which associates seek out their own practice groups and their own assignments. During their first and second years at the firm, associates can try out work from different departments and see how practice varies among them. Associates then select their area of focus at the beginning of their third year.

• Won historic marriage equality victory before the U.S. Supreme Court, whose Hollingsworth v. Perry decision left intact the district court’s broad injunction against the enforcement of California’s Proposition 8.

• Represented the Golden State Warriors in the $1 billion land acquisition and development of a mixed-use office, retail, and 18,064-seat arena and entertainment complex in San Francisco. Gibson Dunn’s land use team successfully entitled the complex, assisted in obtaining a certification for it by the Governor of California designating the project an Environmental Leadership Project under AB 900, and successfully defended the entitlements in court under expedited judicial review.

• Obtained the first national injunction protecting all DACA recipients and six individual Dreamers against the Trump Administration’s termination of the DACA program. Then, in consolidated appeals, successfully defended DACA in the U.S. Supreme Court, which held the termination was unlawful.

• On June 1, 2023, in Slack Technologies, LLC v. Pirani, No. 22-200 (6/1/2023), Gibson Dunn won a major victory for public companies in a first-of-its-kind case addressing the right to sue under Section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933 in the context of direct listings. The Supreme Court's unanimous opinion maintained vital limits on a public company's potential liability for innocent misstatements in the materials it files with the SEC, protected settled expectations, and rejected a rule urged by the plaintiff's bar that would have caused a massive disruption in the capital-formation process.

   

• Mansfield and MLT Black Equity at Work certified
• Law360 – 2023 Firm of the Year, recognizing seven Practice Groups of the Year (Appellate, Competition, L&E, Energy, IP, International Arbitration, Securities)
• American Lawyer – 2023 A-List, 2020 Litigation Department of the Year, 2023 Texas Litigation Department of the Year
• Chambers 2023 – 104 firm practice rankings and 244 individual rankings in Global; Band 1 nationwide for Antitrust, Appellate, Corporate Investigations, FCA, FCPA, International Arbitration, Outsourcing, Privacy, Projects, Real Estate, Securities Litigation, and Regulation
• IFLR1000 2022 – Gibson Dunn recognized in 13 U.S. national categories: Banking; Capital Markets: Debt, Equity, Derivatives, High-Yield; Financial Services Regulatory, M&A, Private Equity, PE Funds, Project Development: Infrastructure, Project Development: Energy, Project Finance, and Restructuring and Insolvency