Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, the premier provider of legal services to technology, life sciences, and growth enterprises worldwide, announced today that Kenneth (Ken) O'Rourke has joined the firm's antitrust practice as a partner in the Washington, D.C., office. O'Rourke is the sixth partner hired in WSGR's Washington, D.C., office in 2019. He will also have a presence in California.
O'Rourke's practice is focused on litigating complex cases and high-stakes U.S. and international disputes, with a focus on antitrust litigation and investigations. For more than three decades, O'Rourke has represented established and emerging companies in multi-forum civil litigation, class actions, "bet the company" cases, government investigations, and antitrust and intellectual property disputes, including several international matters.
"Ken is an accomplished first-chair attorney who is valued for his talents as a litigator and his skills as an advisor," said Doug Clark, managing partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. "For an antitrust practice like ours that is constantly engaged in important cases and confronting important issues, we are looking forward to Ken's contributions toward the work we do on behalf of clients. We're excited to welcome Ken to the firm."
Prior to joining WSGR, O'Rourke was a senior antitrust and business litigation partner with the law firm O'Melveny & Myers where he practiced law for nearly 35 years. He joined O'Melveny's Los Angeles office as an associate in 1985, made partner in 1994, and added an east coast presence moving to that firm's Washington, D.C., office in 2018. He also served, during 2015-2016, as the interim chief legal officer of Health Care Service Corporation, operator of the Blue Cross Blue Shield health plans in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
"I know members of WSGR's antitrust team and the interesting and sophisticated work they do for technology and other top-shelf clients in the U.S. and overseas," O'Rourke said. "It's an impressive team. I look forward to collaborating with them as we litigate and try complex cases, defend clients in important government investigations, and handle other high-stakes antitrust disputes here in the U.S. and abroad."
O'Rourke received his J.D. from Loyola Marymount University in 1985 and earned his B.A. degree from UCLA in 1982. He is admitted to practice in California and the District of Columbia. He is also a solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales and the Republic of Ireland.
O'Rourke formerly served as chair of the California State Bar Antitrust & Unfair Competition Law Section, and for the past decade, he has chaired the Antitrust Litigation Forum for leading plaintiffs and defense antitrust litigators as well as in-house counsel who oversee antitrust litigation.
WSGR has hired six partners in the firm's Washington, D.C., office in 2019. In addition to O'Rourke, the firm added Steffen Johnson (Supreme Court and appellate) in September, Tarek Helou (government investigations) in August, Georgia and James Ravitz (FDA/healthcare regulatory) in April, and Jeffrey Lehtman (government investigations) in February.
Based in New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Brussels, the highly regarded antitrust practice at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati advises clients with respect to mergers and acquisitions, criminal and civil investigations by government agencies, antitrust litigation, and issues involving intellectual property, consumer protection, and privacy. Working with Fortune 100 global enterprises, as well as venture-backed start-up companies, our attorneys have expertise in virtually every significant industry sector, including technology, media, healthcare, services, transportation, and manufacturing. The internationally recognized practice has been involved in several of the most important antitrust matters of the past decade and has obtained favorable antitrust outcomes for clients as diverse as Mylan, Google, Twitter, Live Nation, Netflix, Trulia, Seagate, Nuance, Coca-Cola, Glencore, The McClatchy Company, Brocade, Pixar, Micron, and Autodesk.
About Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
For more than 50 years, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati has offered a broad range of services and legal disciplines focused on serving the principal challenges faced by the management and boards of directors of business enterprises. The firm is nationally recognized as a leader in the fields of corporate governance and finance, mergers and acquisitions, private equity, securities litigation, employment law, intellectual property, and antitrust, among many other areas of law. With deep roots in Silicon Valley, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati has offices in Austin; Beijing; Boston; Brussels; Hong Kong; London; Los Angeles; New York; Palo Alto; San Diego; San Francisco; Seattle; Shanghai; Washington, D.C.; and Wilmington, DE. For more information, please visit www.wsgr.com.
