Doru Gavril

Practice Areas

I specialize in creative solutions to high-stakes securities disputes. My clients include some of the best-known public companies, their boards, and their officers: Alphabet, Tesla, Pinterest, Roblox, Instacart. Their business is cutting-edge and they expect cutting-edge representation. We do not follow the playbook; we write it.

Career

I handle the entire ecosystem of securities-related litigation advice:

• Governance advice on delicate corporate decisions

• IPO-related advice

• Internal/board investigations

• Shareholder litigation (derivative and class actions)

• Books and records inspections

• SEC investigations

• Deal litigation

• Founder disputes

A recent analysis by Lex Machina has identified me as one of the top-10 most active securities defense lawyers in the United States. Chambers has ranked me among the best securities litigators in California for several years. Clients remain my best reference. Here are some of the things they’ve told Chambers this year:

• “Doru is razor-sharp and super detail-oriented.”

• “He has a high level of creativity and desire to find new and different resolutions to problems.”

• “Doru Gavril is an outstanding securities litigator.”

I work with a spectacular team of associates in Silicon Valley and New York, who have invested time to specialize in the federal securities regime and state corporate law. We have been recognized for pragmatic solutions, excellent rapport and credibility with regulators, and a respectful relationship with adversaries.

Before joining Freshfields as one of the founding partners of the Silicon Valley office, I was a securities litigator at Wilson Sonsini. I received a B.A. from Swarthmore (Political Science and Economics), an M.A. from Harvard (Political Science), and a J.D. from Stanford. I also served as a judicial extern for the Hon. Marilyn Hall Patel in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and a legislative intern for Senator Carl Levin and Congressman Bob Brady. In my spare time, I enjoy photography, horology, and Rachmaninov.

Professional Memberships

Bar Admissions: United States Supreme Court, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, California state and federal courts