Richard J. Doren is a partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Los Angeles office and a member of the firm’s Executive Committee. Mr. Doren has extensive experience in complex civil litigation across a variety of practice areas. He has tried cases in state and federal courts around the country and has argued appeals in numerous appellate courts.

The National Law Journal  named Mr. Doren as one of the 20 lawyers featured in its 2017 special report on Winning Litigators who “scored big victories for their clients in high-stakes cases” following a trial victory for his client. The Daily Journal  named Mr. Doren to its inaugural 2023 “Leading Commercial Litigators” list, and named him as one of California’s Top 100 Lawyers in 2019. The American Lawyer named Mr. Doren one of its Litigators of the Week in September 2021 for his work as lead trial counsel for Apple in the Epic v. Apple  trial.  The National Law Journal  named Mr. Doren as one of the 20 lawyers featured in its 2017 special report on Winning Litigators who “scored big victories for their clients in high-stakes cases” following a trial victory for his client. Doren has successfully tried cases involving many different substantive  areas, including antitrust, unfair competition, breach of contract, healthcare fraud, false advertising, wrongful death, partnership disputes, insurance coverage, and wrongful termination, among others. Most recently, Mr. Doren was included in the 2024 edition of the The Best Lawyers in America  for his work in Mergers and Acquisitions Law.

Recent representative matters include:

• Lead trial counsel for Apple in a three-week bench trial in May 2021, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, defending against state and federal antitrust claims brought by Epic Games, Inc. In September 2021, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued a ruling in which she ruled in favor of Apple on all of Epic’s antitrust claims. The case was referred to in the press as “the Super Bowl of Antitrust,” it was recognized by Daily Journal as one of the Top Verdicts of 2021, by Global Competition Review  as the antitrust Matter of the Year, and by Benchmark Litigation  as an Impact Case of the Year.
• Lead trial counsel for in jury trial in 2019 for several of Apple’s contract manufacturers in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California in which Mr. Doren’s clients pressed antitrust claims against Qualcomm based on its business practices in the sale of cellular chips and chipsets. The case settled after a jury had been selected and opening statements delivered.
• Lead trial counsel for Netlist in a November 2021 jury trial in the United States District Court for the Central District of California in which Netlist sued Samsung for breach of a license agreement and supply contract. Following an award of nominal damages by the jury, judgment was entered in favor of Netlist.
• A four-week jury trial in Santa Clara County Superior Court in which Mr. Doren’s client, a health insurer and plan administrator, asserted seven different tort claims involving billing fraud against nine defendants involved in the operation of ambulatory surgery centers. In April 2016, the jury rendered a verdict of $37.5 million in favor of Mr. Doren’s client, awarding every dollar Mr. Doren sought on each cause of action. In lieu of an appeal, the matter has since settled for more than $40 million.
• An arbitration in Spring 2017 in West Virginia before three sitting state court judges over a $120 million dispute between an out-of-state insurer and the state’s teachers’ retirement plan over the state’s right to terminate an annuity contract and reinvest the funds in alternative investments. Following the presentation of dozens of witnesses and hundreds of exhibits, Mr. Doren secured a unanimous decision from the panel for his client, with the three state court judges finding that the insurer had acted properly and owed the retirement plan nothing.
• A bench trial in the Southern District of Florida involving 69 consolidated lawsuits brought by family members of individuals killed in an aircraft accident in Milan, Italy. Plaintiffs collectively sought hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. Three days into the proceedings, the Court requested that Mr. Doren’s client renew its motion to dismiss on forum non conveniens grounds and subsequently dismissed the lawsuit.
• A bench trial in bankruptcy court in Corpus Christi, Texas, addressing the value of a 249,000 acre redwood forest and a company town in Northern California. Over the course of the three-week trial, Mr. Doren convinced the court that the forest had a value over $100 million greater than that being asserted by the creditors.
• A three-week jury trial in Los Angeles Superior Court involving an insurance coverage dispute related to environmental exposures, bad faith claims, and a prayer for punitive damages. Mr. Doren obtained a defense verdict.
• A jury trial in the United States District Court for the Central District of California addressing a false advertising dispute between two consumer goods companies that competed in the diaper pail market. Mr. Doren was retained after an initial verdict against his client. In the months ahead, he had the initial judgment vacated, prepared the case for retrial and, early in the retrial, obtained a ruling excluding all of plaintiff’s evidence of damages, which led to entry of judgment in his client’s favor. He also handled the subsequent appeal, in which the Ninth Circuit unanimously affirmed the trial court’s judgment.

Mr. Doren has also represented clients in dozens of class actions, many of which included antitrust claims. Two examples include MDL 1334, In re Managed Care  and MDL 2020, In re Aetna UCR Litigation.

He graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1982 and received his law degree from the University of San Diego in 1986, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review  and graduated cum laude.