Sean Howell is an associate attorney in the San Francisco office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He is a member of the firm’s Litigation Department.

His practice focuses on antitrust and competition litigation, as well as class action litigation. He has experience in a wide variety of matters, including civil antitrust litigation, antitrust counseling, government antitrust investigations, class actions, media litigation and counseling, and appeals.

Sean’s recent experience includes*:

• Defending a social media company in class actions involving unfair competition and privacy claims;
• Defending a technology company in antitrust class actions;
• Representing a different technology company in a civil antitrust investigation;
• Defending a biotechnology company against monopolization claims;
• Defending a news organization against a defamation claim; and
• Representing a petitioner in a successful immigration appeal in the Ninth Circuit.

He also completed a six-month secondment to Facebook’s antitrust group. He has published several articles on competition law, including one that was recently cited by the Ninth Circuit in a published decision.

Sean received his law degree from Berkeley Law in 2016, where he was an editor for the California Law Review and an articles editor for Ecology Law Quarterly. He received several academic awards while in law school, including American Jurisprudence awards in five courses and Prosser Prizes in four courses. Prior to law school, Sean worked for several years as a journalist and nonprofit communications manager. He earned his bachelor’s degree in English from Stanford in 2007.

Prior to joining Gibson Dunn, Sean was an associate at Covington & Burling LLP in San Francisco. He also clerked on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California for the Honorable Charles Breyer, and on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for the Honorable Kim Wardlaw.

Sean is a member of the State Bar of California. He is admitted to practice before the United States District Court for the Northern District of California and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

*Includes recent experience prior to joining Gibson Dunn.