Franklin Brockway Gowdy

Partner

Franklin Brockway "Brock" Gowdy is the Managing Partner of the San Francisco office. As a prominent member of Morgan Lewis's Litigation Practice Group, he is a trial lawyer specializing in complex litigation, especially securities, RICO, antitrust, copyright, trade secrets, patent, products liability, environmental and defense of professional malpractice cases. Mr. Gowdy has tried more than 100 cases since 1971 around the United States for Fortune 100 clients and prominent individuals in "mission critical" and "bet the company" type matters.

Mr. Gowdy has litigated class action cases since 1974, principally in antitrust and securities matters in courts all around the country. He has litigated and tried numerous cases in the Northern District of California during the past 34 years. In the past 12 years, Mr. Gowdy has litigated at least 20 cases involving the telecommunications industry. During that time, he tried five of those cases, including several in courts in Northern California. Mr. Gowdy has also litigated products liability cases for plaintiffs and defendants since the late 1970s for clients such as Amfac Inc. and subsidiaries, Cisco, Mobay Chemical Corporation, Sears, Whirlpool and others.

Mr. Gowdy has a comprehensive knowledge of the complex issues and trends impacting the securities and financial services industries, as demonstrated by his successful representation of Coopers & Lybrands for over 20 years. His securities and antitrust litigation practice includes numerous representations in class-action and multi-district litigation, S.E.C., F.T.C. and U.S.D.J. inquiries and investigations, state regulatory investigations and criminal Grand Juries and criminal cases.

Mr. Gowdy also has extensive retail industry experience. For over a decade, he handled virtually all litigation matters for Amfac, Inc. and its extensive retail operations. He also consulted with Apple in connection with their decision to commence retail operations in recent years.

Most recent cases involved successful defense of Cisco Systems, Inc. in the Eastern District of Texas (Alcatel USA, Inc. v. Cisco Systems, Inc.), successful prosecution of claims for sports agent Leigh Steinberg, resulting in a $44.66 million verdict (Steinberg et al. v. Athletes First, C.D. Cal.) and successful defense of Publishers Clearing House in a Lanham Act case (Starcrest v. Publishers Clearing House, C.D. Cal.).

In 2004, Mr. Gowdy was named "Attorney of the Year" by California Lawyer magazine in the Law Practice Management category. He was chosen for the award for his leadership and vision in bringing 250 partners, associates and staff to Morgan Lewis and opening three new offices in California. Winners of this prestigious award are selected based on their impact on the California legal community. This was Mr. Gowdy's second consecutive "Attorney of the Year" award. He was additionally honored in 2003 for successfully representing Leigh Steinberg, one of the most well-known professional sports agents in the U.S., in a breach of contract and unfair competition case.

Mr. Gowdy is admitted to practice in all California state courts; the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; and the U.S. District Courts for the Northern and Central Districts of California.

Mr. Gowdy's memberships include: Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the Securities Litigation and Antitrust Sections of the American Bar Association. He is also a member of the California and San Francisco Bar Associations, the Association of Business Trial Lawyers and the U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society.