Blaine H. Evanson is an associate in the Los Angeles office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.  He practices in the firm's Litigation Department and its Appellate and Constitutional Law Practice Group.  He has represented clients in several federal and state appellate courts, in cases involving punitive damages, class action, employment, product liability, insurance, intellectual property, and constitutional litigation.  Particularly in cases involving punitive damages and in class actions, Mr. Evanson has a broad range of experience at both the appellate and trial level.

Recent representative appellate matters include obtaining reversal from the D.C. Circuit of a district court's dismissal on standing grounds; securing interlocutory review from the Ninth Circuit of a major wage-and-hour class action; obtaining a remand from the Fourth Circuit on behalf of a newspaper reporter seeking access to sealed legal proceedings; and defeating an appeal brought in the Ninth Circuit by a major insurer against a well-known reinsurer.  In the trial court, Mr. Evanson has had a string of successes obtaining dismissal on the pleadings of state-wide and nationwide putative class actions, prior to any discovery, in cases involving claims under the wage-and-hour and consumer protection laws.  He also has helped defeat multiple claims for punitive damages at various stages of trial, including in motions for judgment on the pleadings, for summary judgment, and for post-trial judgment as a matter of law.

Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Evanson served as a law clerk for Judge A. Raymond Randolph of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.  He graduated from Columbia Law School in 2006, where he was a James Kent Scholar, a Senior Editor on the Columbia Law Review, and a finalist in the Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court, winning the award for the Best Brief.  He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Information Systems, with University Honors, from Brigham Young University in 2003.

Mr. Evanson teaches courses on appellate advocacy and constitutional law at the University of Southern California and Loyola Law Schools, and has lectured and written on the subjects of punitive damages, class actions, and constitutional law.  Mr. Evanson was recently named a "Rising Star" in the 2010 Southern California "Superlawyers" edition of Los Angeles Magazine.  He is a member of the California bar, and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fifth, Ninth, Tenth, Federal, and D.C. Circuits, as well as the U.S. District Courts for the Central and Northern Districts of California.