Randolph Gaw

Practice Areas

Antitrust litigation

Catastrophic injury

Class actions

Complex commercial litigation

Career

Founding Partner; Gaw | Poe LLP (and predecessor) -- September 2012-present.

Counsel; O'Melveny & Myers LLP -- June 2007-September 2012

Associate; Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, P.C. -- September 2002-March 2007

Randolph Gaw founded Gaw | Poe LLP and has been practicing law since graduating in 2002 from Stanford Law School with his co-founder Mark Poe. Solely during his time with Gaw | Poe, Mr. Gaw has been a first or second-chair of at least ten different trials and arbitrations and has obtained verdicts, judgments, or arbitration awards in those matters valued at over $70 million. He has also been appellate counsel of record on eleven appeals and writ petitions to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals or the California Court of Appeal and prevailed in most of them. Mr. Gaw practices primarily in the fields of antitrust litigation and class action litigation, but will also take select catastrophic injury cases.

Prior to co-founding Gaw | Poe, Mr. Gaw spent more than ten years of litigation practice at international law firms O’Melveny & Myers and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. During his time at O'Melveny & Myers, he was a member of its Business Litigation and Trial practice and helped to successfully defend Lennar Corporation in an 11-month bench trial held in San Diego County Superior Court over nearly $200 million in claims regarding the development of the Bridges master-planned community in Rancho Santa Fe, California. He was also part of a team that successfully defended an Israeli company called NDS in a 1-month federal jury trial held in the Central District of California where the plaintiff--The Dish Network--sought damages and restitution of nearly $2 billion for alleged trade secret misappropriation. Mr. Gaw also had two appellate oral arguments before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and was also part of an appellate team that helped to successfully vacate a multi-billion dollar judgment against Ford Motor Company. During his time at Wilson Sonsini, he practiced securities litigation and helped to obtain the dismissal of numerous securities fraud class action lawsuits. Mr. Gaw was also part of an arbitration team that successfully defended Goldman Sachs against $30 million in claims from a disgruntled investor, and was part of a different arbitration team that successfully represented a prominent private equity managing director who brought claims that he was not paid the amount of carried interest owed to him by his private equity firm. He also helped Wilson Sonsini start its New York litigation practice and was the firm's first California-based associate to work out of the New York office.

At Stanford Law School, Mr. Gaw was a member of the winning team in the moot court competition and also won the award for giving the best individual oral argument. Before attending Stanford, Mr. Gaw graduated from U.C. Berkeley with high distinction with a degree in political science and economics. He was also one of only twenty students invited to early membership in Phi Beta Kappa during his junior year. Mr. Gaw also participated in the Associated Students of the University of California and was elected to the campus-wide position of Student Advocate for his senior year.

Professional Memberships

Senior Fellow, Litigation Counsel of America

Super Lawyer, Northern California

American Bar Association

Bar Association of San Francisco

Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area

Personal

Mr. Gaw has been married for 17 years and has two children, ages 14 and 11. He has spent most of his life living in the San Francisco Bay Area, but has also resided for at least a year in Berlin, New York City, and San Diego. He is a proud supporter of the California Golden Bears football team, and is a member of its San Francisco Grid Club. Mr. Gaw is also a graduate of Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, California and tries to help out fellow Bells whenever he can.

When he is not attending his children's school or club volleyball games, Mr. Gaw enjoys skiing, playing Texas hold'em poker, and poorly hitting golf balls using a 7-iron.

Clients

Klearnow.AI

Pitco Foods

Quality Transformer & Electronics

Trepco

Zayo Group

Work Highlights

AdTrader v. Google (N.D. Cal.). Lead trial counsel in putative class action brought on behalf of Google advertisers alleging that Google failed to issue them refunds for invalid ad traffic. 18 months into the lawsuit, Google announced its intention to issue approximately $75 million in refunds to one of the proposed advertiser classes for previously unrefunded invalid ad traffic. The case was later resolved with a court-approved class settlement of $7 million to a different advertiser class.

Confidential arbitration (AAA). First-chair in arbitration involving a dispute between the founder of a successful startup and his former company over a stock repurchase and the startup’s refusal to indemnify the founder in connection with a related third-party lawsuit. The arbitrator issued an award worth more than $10 million in favor of our client.

Galic v. Goodenbour (S.F. Sup.) First-chair in a nationally publicized personal injury jury trial involving claims brought by former college basketball players against their coach and school for persistent emotional and verbal abuse. Unanimous jury verdict awarded our client $750,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. Result of trial was upheld on appeal.

Donald Okada v. Mark Whitehead (C.D. Cal.). First-chair in jury trial involving dispute between former real estate partners. Unanimous jury verdict awarded our client over $500,000 in compensatory and punitive damages, ratified the legality of certain actions taken by him worth approximately $1 million, and denied recovery on any of the defendant’s $7 million worth of counterclaims.

Expert in these Jurisdictions

Admitted to practice:

California

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

United States Supreme Court

Languages Spoken

English

Education