2025 Golden State Institute

Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero is the 29th Chief Justice of California. She was sworn into office on January 2, 2023, making history as the first Latina to serve as California’s Chief Justice.

Chief Justice Guerrero was nominated to office by Governor Gavin Newsom in August 2022. When she first joined the California Supreme Court as an associate justice in March 2022, Chief Justice Guerrero was also the first Latina to serve on the state’s high court.

Chief Justice Guerrero  adopted the Power of Democracy Civic Learning Initiative and has been active in the “Judges in the Classroom” civics program, which engages schools and encourages students to learn about the role of the judiciary.

Prior to being elevated to the California Supreme Court, Chief Justice Guerrero served as an associate justice at the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division One since December 2017. Before her appellate appointment, she served as a judge at the Superior Court of San Diego County from 2013 to 2017, and was the supervising judge of its Family Law Division in 2017.

Chief Justice Guerrero is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and was born and raised in California’s Imperial Valley. She attended the University of California, Berkeley as an undergraduate and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Stanford Law School.

United States Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler was appointed in 2010 to the Northern District of California. She has presided as a trial and settlement judge over hundreds of civil cases, including intellectual-property, employment, civil-rights, and commercial disputes.

Before joining the court, Judge Beeler was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District, prosecuting complex white-collar cases with parallel civil components. She was the Office’s Professional Responsibility Officer and supervised the Criminal Division. She was a law clerk to the Honorable Cecil F. Poole, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She trained as a mediator with the Northern District’s ADR Program, the Federal Judicial Center, and Harvard Law School.

Judge Beeler has served as a member of the Ninth Circuit Conference Executive Committee, the President of the Edward J. McFetridge American Inn of Court, a board member of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers (Northern California), the President of the Federal Bar Association, a member of the Ninth Circuit’s Magistrate Judge Executive Board, a member of the Ninth Circuit’s Criminal Case Committee, a board member of the Northern District Practice Program, the chair (and founder) of the Northern District’s Criminal Practice Committee, the co-chair of the Conviction Alternatives Committee, a board member of the Bar Association of San Francisco (BASF), a member of BASF’s Criminal Justice Task Force, the co-chair of the Lawyer Representatives to the Ninth Circuit, and a member of the Ninth Circuit’s Jury Trial Improvement Committee. She is one of four judges on the U.S. Department of Justice/Office of Defender Services Joint Electronic Technology Working Group. She implemented the court’s reentry and diversion courts.

Judge Beeler was named one of the Recorder’s 2012 Women Leaders in Law and received the Northern District Judicial Conference’s 2006 Public Service Award, BASF’s 2015 Barristers Choice Award, the Federal Bar Association’s 2018 Inaugural Chapter Achievement award, the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association’s 2018 Federal Judge of the Year award, and the Women Lawyers of Alameda County’s 2023 Jurist of the Year award.

Judge Beeler taught Civil Trial Practice at U.C. Berkeley School of Law and Criminal Procedure at U.C. Law San Francisco (former U.C. Hastings College of the Law). She has led rule-of-law projects in Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Jordan, Ukraine, Turkey, and Thailand.

Judge Beeler graduated with honors from the University of Washington School of Law, where she was Order of the Coif and an Articles Editor on the Washington Law Review. She received her A.B. with honors from Bowdoin College.

Lee Berger focuses on antitrust law, including civil enforcement, private litigation, criminal investigations, compliance advice, and mergers. Lee has experience working on cases focused on industries such as real estate; telecom; media and entertainment; esports; healthcare; energy; consumer technology; automotive; finance; travel; and agriculture.

Before joining Steptoe, Lee served as the inaugural Chief of the Civil Conduct Task Force, Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he supervised or advised on themajority of the Division’s civil conduct enforcement investigations and litigations, andcounseled the Division leadership on issues concerning civil conduct enforcement. As Chief,he created many policies that continue to drive the eff ectiveness and effi ciency of the Division’s civil conduct enforcement agenda today.

Lee’s extensive government experience included a focus on the telecom, media, and entertainment industries earlier in his career, when he served as a trial attorney in what was at the time called the Media, Entertainment, and Professional Services Section of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division. Some of the more notable cases he worked on at the Antitrust Division include leading two investigations into civil conduct violations in the broadcast television industry, as well as investigations of the two largest-ever broadcast television station group mergers. He also was a key attorney on the investigation and litigation of Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s compliance with a 2010 consent decree, as well as the investigation of the Disney/Fox merger. He sat on a high-profile panel of television, cable, and digital media executives as the sole Antitrust Division representative at the 2019 Public Workshop on Competition in Television and Digital Advertising. Prior to his government service, Lee was a lawyer at two international law firms, where he specialized in price-fixing and other coordinated-conduct litigations.

Lee is a frequent speaker on antitrust issues and has long been involved in the California Lawyers Association, where he has served in a variety of roles including current advisor and past chair of the Antitrust & Unfair Competition Section, Secretary of the Board of Directors, and Chair of the Governance Committee.

Eric Enson is a partner in Crowell & Moring’s Antitrust & Competition practice.  Consistently recognized by Chambers, Best Lawyers in America, and The Legal 500 as a leading competition lawyer, clients turn to Eric for his extensive antitrust litigation and counseling experience. Eric represents clients in all manner of antitrust claims, such as complex international cartel investigations and antitrust class actions, including major jury trials. His experience extends to matters involving claims of monopolization and other types of unilateral conduct. He serves as an advisor to the Executive Committee of the Antitrust and Consumer Protection Section of the California Lawyers Association, frequently writing and speaking about novel competition issues, and has testified before the California Senate and Assembly Judiciary Committees and the California Law Revision Commission on various topics, including proposed changes to California’s antitrust laws and regulation of algorithmic and dynamic pricing. 

Qianwei Fu is a partner in the Oakland office of Zelle LLP.  Her practice focuses on representing consumers and opt-out claimants in antitrust cartel and monopolization cases.  Her practice spans across various industries, including technology, automotive, transportation, energy, financial, and pharmaceuticals.  Qianwei has played a primary role in all critical stages of litigation in some of the nation’s largest antitrust cases, routinely collaborating with economic and industry experts on damages and pass-on issues.

Qianwei leads the firm’s international competition law practice, and has collaborated with co-counsel in Canada, China, and Europe to secure recoveries for multinational corporations.  In addition to her antitrust practice, she provides counseling in complex commercial disputes, data privacy matters, and insurance class action defense.  Qianwei is a past Chair of the California Lawyers Association Antitrust and Unfair Competition Law Section and currently serves as an Advisor of the Section.

Alexis Gilman is a partner in Alston & Bird’s Litigation & Trial Practice and Antitrust Team in Washington, DC.  With over two decades of antitrust experience, Alexis advises and represents clients on a broad range of civil antitrust matters, including merger reviews and clearances, government investigations, premerger Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) notifications, and antitrust litigation.  He has a particular focus on representing merging parties and third parties in merger investigations by the Federal Trade Commission, Department of Justice, and state attorneys general. His experience spans a wide range of industries, including retail, consumer goods, food and beverage, healthcare, and other industries. Alexis has been recognized as a leading antitrust practitioner by Chambers USA, Best Lawyers in America, and other publications. 

From 2014-2017, Alexis served as the Assistant Director of the Mergers IV Division in the Bureau of Competition of the Federal Trade Commission, leading this 30-attorney division. Prior to this position, Alexis served as a Deputy Assistant Director of the Mergers IV Division from 2012-2014, and a Staff Attorney in the division from 2010-2012. During his time at the FTC, Alexis supervised, led, and worked on some of the agency’s highest-profile merger matters, including litigation successfully challenging the Staples/Office Depot, DraftKings/FanDuel, and Pinnacle/Ameristar transactions, as well as the investigations of the Amazon/Whole Foods, Dollar Tree/Family Dollar, Albertsons/Safeway, Men’s Wearhouse/Jos. A. Bank, and Bass Pro/Cabela’s transactions.

Dean M. Harvey is a Partner in the San Francisco office of Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein.  He represents workers, consumers, and small businesses in antitrust and intellectual property cases.  He has been lead or co-lead class counsel in many antitrust class actions in California and throughout the country.  He is a member of the American Antitrust Institute’s Advisory Board, and serves as an expert assisting the California Law Revision Commission in its assessment of California antitrust law.

David W. Kesselman is a Partner of Kesselman Brantly Stockinger LLP.   Mr. Kesselman represents plaintiffs and defendants in complex litigation matters, with a particular expertise in antitrust, unfair competition, and business tort cases.  Mr. Kesselman has significant trial and arbitration experience, and he has argued cases in both federal and state appellate courts. He also provides antitrust counseling and compliance advice to corporations.  For many years, Mr. Kesselman has served as an adjunct professor of Antitrust Law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. He has served on the executive committee for the California State Bar’s Antitrust and Unfair Competition section (and continues to serve as an Advisor), and he is a past Chair of the Los Angeles County Bar’s Antitrust and Unfair Business Practices Section. He is also a contributing author and editor of the California State Antitrust and Unfair Competition treatise (the chapter covering Business and Professions Code section 17200).  Mr. Kesselman received his J.D. from the University of California, Davis, where he received the U.C. Davis Lasky Antitrust Award. He holds an M.A. from the London School of Economics in International History. He received his B.A. from the University of California, Irvine.

Manish Kumar served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General (DAAG) for Criminal Enforcement at the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. He was responsible for overseeing more than 100 prosecutors working in the Division’s five criminal offices across the United States.

Prior to his appointment as DAAG, Mr. Kumar served as Chief of the Division’s San Francisco Office, supervising trial attorneys as they conducted investigations and prosecutions of international price-fixing, civil antitrust, and domestic bid-rigging and procurement fraud matters involving the western United States. Mr. Kumar joined the Justice Department through the Honors Program and since then has served in various roles including as Trial Attorney, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, Assistant Chief, and Chief in the Antitrust Division.

Mr. Kumar is a graduate of Stanford University and the University of Minnesota Law School. He clerked in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada.

Jill M. Manning is a Mediator, Arbitrator, Special Master, Neutral Evaluator and Discovery Referee at JAMS.  Prior to joining JAMS, Ms. Manning represented clients in class action and complex litigation matters in a wide variety of fields, including antitrust and competition, consumer protection, cybersecurity and privacy, and sports matters. In addition to her ADR practice at JAMS, Ms. Manning serves as a neutral for the various state and federal courts, including the Northern and Central Districts of California. Ms. Manning is presently serving a two-year term as Vice-President of the California Lawyers Association and is a former Chair of the Executive Committee of the Antitrust & Consumer Protection Section.

Stephen McIntyre is a partner in the Antitrust and Competition practice of Paul Hastings and is based in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Stephen represents clients in investigations, government enforcement actions and high-stakes private litigation. He brings skill, insight and practicality to each matter — be it a nationwide class action, a suit against a client’s chief competitor or an inquiry from a federal or state antitrust enforcer.

Lauded as an “Up and Coming” leader (Chambers USA, Antitrust: California), a “Rising Star” (Law360) and a “Top Antitrust Lawyer” in California (The Daily Journal), Stephen is widely respected among peers, clients and adversaries alike. He also is an active contributor to the antitrust community. Stephen has served on the Executive Committee of the California Lawyers Association’s Antitrust & Unfair Competition Law Section and on the Executive Committee of the LA County Bar Association’s Antitrust & Unfair Business Practices Section. He has also served as editor-in-chief of the journal Competition.

Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Stephen maintains an active pro bono practice representing refugees and asylum seekers.

Diana Moss is Vice President and Director of Competition Policy at the Progressive Policy Institute. From 2015-2023, Dr. Moss was President of the American Antitrust Institute. An economist, her work spans the economic, policy, and legal analysis of antitrust enforcement and sector regulation, with industry expertise in digital technology, energy, agriculture, airlines, telecommunications, media, and healthcare. Before AAI, Dr. Moss served at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission where she coordinated the agency’s merger analysis and worked on landmark rule makings. She has also consulted in private practice in the areas of regulation and antitrust.

Dr. Moss has spoken widely on various topics involving competition policy and enforcement, testified before Congress, appeared before state and federal regulatory commissions, in federal court, at industry and academic conferences, and has made numerous radio and television appearances, including on CNN, PBS, NPR, CNBC, and others. She has published articles in numerous economic and legal journals, including: American Economic Review, Journal of Industrial Organization, The Antitrust Bulletin, The Antitrust Source, Antitrust Magazine, and Energy Law Journal. She is editor of Network Access, Regulation and Antitrust, and has contributed chapters to The Structure of American Industry, and the Global Competition Review’s (GCR’s) The Guide to Merger Remedies.

Dr. Moss was named to the GCR’s Women in Antitrust in 2016 and again in 2021. She has long championed the advancement of women in the law and economics profession. In 2021, Dr. Moss was inducted into the American Bar Association Antitrust Law Section’s Hall of Fame-inism. Diana Moss was named by Washingtonian Magazine’s “Washington DC’s Most Influential People” in 2022 and 2023. She holds a M.A. degree from the University of Denver and a Ph.D. from the Colorado School of Mines. Dr. Moss is Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Economics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Kenneth (Ken) O’Rourke is a partner in the antitrust department at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where his practice focuses on litigating complex cases and high-stakes U.S. and international disputes, as well as defending against government investigations. Ken is based in the firm’s Washington, D.C., office with a continuing presence in California. He represents companies pursuing remedies for wrongful conduct by others, as well as defends companies being sued in complex cases.

For more than three decades, Ken has represented established and emerging companies in multi-forum civil litigation, class actions, “bet-the-company” cases, government enforcer investigations, merger litigation, and high-stakes antitrust and intellectual property disputes, including several international matters. His experience includes litigating class actions and other international price-fixing cartel follow-on actions, monopolization and attempted monopolization cases, pending mergers contested by government enforcers and private litigants, IP disputes involving the refusal to license standard essential patents (SEPs) on reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) terms, and pharmaceutical antitrust lawsuits alleging delayed market entry of generic drugs due to reverse payment patent settlements.

Prior to joining Wilson Sonsini, Ken was a senior antitrust and business litigation partner with another top law firm, where he practiced law for nearly 35 years in California and (more recently) Washington, D.C. He also served for nearly 18 months as the interim chief legal officer of Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC), one of the country’s largest health insurers and operator of the BlueCross BlueShield health plans in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.  

Kuru has tried antitrust merger cases in courtrooms across the country. Most recently, he represented the State of Washington in successfully challenging the merger of Kroger and Albertsons, and he represented a private plaintiff in pursuing a post-consummation challenge to a merger – a challenge that resulted in the first-ever divestiture in private merger litigation.

Kuru also represents defendants in complex and multi-district litigation involving allegations of price fixing, monopolization and other alleged anticompetitive conduct. In 2025, Kuru was ranked Up and Coming: Antitrust by Chambers USA.

Outside the courtroom, Kuru advises clients on a wide range of antitrust matters, including merger clearance, litigation contingency planning and antitrust compliance.

A former software engineer, Kuru brings a deep knowledge and affinity for technology to the legal analysis and advice he provides to clients. In the litigation context, Kuru relies on his technology background to defend and cross-examine technology witnesses, including computer science experts.

Paul Riehle is an accomplished antitrust, class action defense, and complex commercial litigator and trial lawyer. He has tried cases to verdict in federal court in California and Arizona, as well as in California Superior Court for every county in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

Paul is a past chair of the California State Bar Antitrust & Unfair Competition Law Section and served from 2018 to 2022 as the Antitrust & Unfair Competition Law Section Representative on the Board of the California Lawyers Association (CLA). He was a member of the Section’s Executive Committee from 2010 to 2016 and has served as an Advisor to the Section beginning in 2017 to the present.  In 2024, he was selected as the Antitrust Lawyer of the Year by the CLA.

In 2025, Paul received the Award for Excellence in Ethics in Complex Litigation from the Center for Litigation and the Courts. For many years he has been named a Super Lawyer for Antitrust Litigation, AV Preeminent Attorney – Judicial Edition by Martindale-Hubbell, and The Best Lawyers in America for Antitrust Law. Paul serves on the Northern District of California’s Mediation Panel and its Early Neutral Evaluation Panel, as well as a San Francisco County Superior Court Settlement Conference Officer and Judicial Arbitrator.

Catherine Simonsen is a Partner and Co-Founder of Simonsen Sussman LLP, a boutique plaintiff-side antitrust and unfair competition law firm.  She has over a decade of experience investigating and litigating government and private antitrust cases on both the plaintiff and defense sides in federal and California state courts.  Prior to co-founding the firm, Catherine served as the Assistant Regional Director for the Western Competition Group at the Federal Trade Commission, where she managed several merger and conduct investigations and complaint preparation.  Before joining the FTC, Catherine served as a Deputy Attorney General in the Antitrust Section of the California Attorney General’s office.  Prior to her government enforcement roles, Catherine was a partner in private practice, where she successfully prosecuted numerous competitor suits under federal and state antitrust laws.  Catherine clerked for the Honorable J. Jerome Farris of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable John C. Coughenour of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.  She holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and a B.A. from Stanford University.

A partner in the San Francisco office, Todd A. Seaver litigates both antitrust and financial manipulation cases.  He has litigated antitrust cases involving varied industries of high-tech, pharmaceuticals, autos, chemicals, consumer electronics, biotech, diamonds, and online retailing.  He is a leader of the firm’s antitrust practice group.

Currently, Mr. Seaver is co-lead counsel for consumer plaintiffs in an antitrust class action against American Express, Oliver v. American Express Co., No. 1:19-cv-00566-NGG (E.D.N.Y.), which is being tried to a jury in August 2025.  The action is at the forefront of the payments industry and is now shaped by the landmark ruling in Ohio v. American Express Co., 138 S. Ct. 2274 (2018), in which the U.S. Supreme Court articulated a new analytical framework for so-called “two-sided” markets.

Mr. Seaver is also presently counsel for plaintiffs and represents California State Teachers’ Retirement System in the Euribor (Sullivan v. Barclays PLC, et al., No. 13-cv-2811 (S.D.N.Y.)), which has resulted in $651.5 million in partial settlements to date, and Yen Libor (Laydon v. Mizuho Bank, Ltd., No. 1:12-cv-03419 (GBD) (S.D.N.Y.), and Sonterra Capital Master Fund, Ltd. v. UBS AG, No. 1:15-cv-05844 (GBD) (S.D.N.Y)), which has resulted in $364.5 million in partial settlements to date.  Both are antitrust cases involving Wall Street banks’ manipulation of interest rate benchmarks and bid-ask spread price fixing on interest rate derivatives.

Mr. Seaver was also one of the attorneys who spearheaded the landmark case against the major credit rating agencies (Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s), California Public Employees’ Retirement System v. Moody’s Corp., No. CGC-09-490241 (Cal. Super. Ct. San Francisco Cty.).  The case, filed on behalf of the nation’s largest state pension fund, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, was groundbreaking litigation that held the rating agencies financially responsible for negligent misrepresentations in rating structured investment vehicles. 

Mr. Seaver was ranked by Benchmark Litigation as a California Litigation Star (2022-2025), Local Litigation Star (2019-2020, 2022-2025), and Noted Star (2019-2025) in Plaintiff Work, Securities, and as a California Future Star (2020-2021).  He was recently recognized as a leading antitrust attorney by Chambers USA.  He was further recognized as a Recommended Attorney by The Legal 500 (U.S. edition) in Antitrust (2019-2025) and Securities Litigation (2017-2018).  He was also recognized as a Super Lawyer by Northern California Super Lawyers (2017-2025).  He has also been recognized by Lexology Index (formerly Global Competition Review’s Who’s Who Legal) in Competition (2017-2023), which also named him a Thought Leader in Competition (2019-2020, 2022-2024) and a Thought Leader: USA (2023-2024). He was selected by Lawdragon for its 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers guide (2019-2025), as featured in Lawdragon’s The Plaintiff Issue magazine.

Mr. Seaver graduated magna cum laude from Boston University in 1994 with a B.A. in International Relations.  He earned a M.Sc. from the London School of Economics in 1995 and graduated cum laude from the American University Washington College of Law in 1999.  While in law school, Mr. Seaver served as a law clerk at the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition and as a judicial extern for the Honorable Ricardo M. Urbina, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Gary is a partner with Hausfeld splitting time between San Francisco and San Diego, focusing on complex federal antitrust litigation. Over the last decade of practice, Gary has recovered over $1 billion for clients that were the victims of antitrust violations. The Legal 500 has identified Gary as a “key name in California” for antitrust litigation and described Gary as “creative and intellectually nimble,” “a practical and effective litigator,” “a pleasure to work with,” and “a very skilled advocate” that “takes his professional and ethical obligations seriously.” Among many active cases, Gary is presently represents the plaintiffs in In re RealPage, Inc. Rental Software Antitrust Litigation. 

Gary has been honored as a Rising Star Under 40 in Healthcare Law by Law360 (2017), a Rising Star in Antitrust Litigation (2017 to 2022) and a Super Lawyer for Antitrust Litigation (2023-2024), a Trailblazer by the Legal Intelligencer (2019), an Honoree on Benchmark Litigation’s 40 & Under List (2023 to 2024), a recipient of the American Antitrust Institute’s Outstanding Achievement in Private Law Practice Award (2023), and was named to Best Lawyers Ones to Watch list for Antitrust (2025).

Gary is also committed to legal scholarship, the development of the antitrust laws, and serving the community through pro bono work. Gary has authored numerous articles on competition issues and the legal profession, including for the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Young Lawyers Division, the ABA’s Health Care Chronicle, and most notably, contributing to the ABA Antitrust Section’s seminal publication, Antitrust Law Developments. As a former Chair of the Committee to Support the Antitrust Law’s (COSAL) Amicus Committee, Gary has authored or contributed to amicus filings across the circuit courts and in the Supreme Court seeking to advance competition law policies. And on the pro bono front, Gary has represented victims of clergy sexual abuse that received settlement offers from the Philadelphia Archdiocese. For this and other pro bono work, Gary and Hausfeld’s Philadelphia office received the Philadelphia Bar Foundation’s 2019 Pro Bono Award.

As Co-Chair of the firm’s Antitrust and Competition Practice, Michael focuses on civil and criminal antitrust litigation. He represents companies and individuals in internal and DOJ antitrust investigations and has been lead counsel in dozens of antitrust class actions. He has tried more than 40 cases and argued 20 appeals.

Michael is recognized by numerous legal-ranking guides including Chambers Global, Chambers USA, The Legal 500 US, PLC Which Lawyer, and Best Lawyers in America®, which quote sources who note that Michael is “an expert in white-collar litigation and antitrust and often represents clients in cases involving a combination of both areas, such as criminal cartel matters.” Michael is praised for his “deep and thorough understanding of antitrust law, which is coupled with a patient and proactive work ethic,” and his “reputation as a top-flight trial lawyer for criminal antitrust litigation and cartel work.” For more than fifteen years, he has been named a Northern California “Super Lawyer” and a leader in the field of White Collar Criminal Defense in a survey published in San Francisco magazine.

Michael has served on the firm’s Policy Committee (its board of directors), as managing partner of the firm’s San Francisco office, and as Chair of the firmwide Pro Bono Committee. He served as President of the Bar Association of San Francisco in 2016.

Jeff VanHooreweghe is a partner at Wilson Sonsini and vice chair of the firm’s Antitrust and Competition Group, where he leads high-stakes civil and criminal antitrust matters both domestically and internationally, including criminal grand jury investigations, civil investigations, private litigation, and compliance counseling. With a track record of advising Fortune 500 companies and emerging industry leaders, Jeff provides invaluable counsel on complex antitrust matters that can have significant financial and reputational impact. Drawing on his extensive experience at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, Jeff brings a wealth of knowledge to help his clients navigate some of the most sensitive and challenging antitrust issues. Jeff is also an adjunct professor at UC Law San Francisco, where he teaches antitrust law. Jeff received his A.B. in Economics and History from Washington University and J.D. from Catholic University of America.

Steve Vieux is Senior Counsel at Bartko Pavia LLP in the Litigation Practice. Steve represents and advises clients in commercial disputes, with a focus on antitrust and privacy matters. Steve has deep experience handling complex litigation matters and government investigations, particularly in the antitrust and consumer protection areas, from his government service in addition to his work in private practice. 

Steve has represented and advised clients in diverse industries ranging from health care to automotive to technology. Steve also counsels clients on antitrust, advertising, and privacy compliance. He has assisted clients in developing antitrust compliance programs, including the design and provision of antitrust training for sales and distribution executives. Steve has also assisted clients in responding to data breaches, developing privacy policies, and drafting related disclosures. In addition, he has guided clients in responding to complex and sensitive discovery requests in private and government antitrust litigation.

Steve started his legal career in public service with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) where he led antitrust investigations in the health care and pharmaceutical industries and represented the agency in antitrust litigation. At the FTC, he played critical roles in groundbreaking and influential litigation in recent antitrust practice including FTC v. Actavis and Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Corp. He was awarded the prestigious Janet D. Steiger award on two separate occasions in recognition of his work.

Steve’s record of public service also includes serving as Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, managing a caseload of more than 100 criminal cases. He has developed keen insight as a result of his extensive experience in government service that is invaluable to clients interacting with government agencies and conducting internal investigations.

Bryn Williams is an attorney in the Colorado Department of Law where he manages the Antitrust unit as they investigate and litigate violations of state and federal competition law. Prior to that position, he served in the Defense, Industrials, and Aerospace Section at DOJ Antitrust. Before turning to public service, Bryn worked for two mid-size firms in California where he represented plaintiffs and defendants in a variety of complex civil disputes, patent litigation, product counseling, and regulatory matters. Before becoming a lawyer, Bryn earned a Ph.D. in archaeology from Stanford University.

Valarie C. Williams is Partner in Charge of Alston & Bird’s San Francisco office and Co-Lead of the firm’s Global Antitrust Team. She has a national practice focused on complex antitrust litigation. Valarie has served as lead counsel in multidistrict proceedings, class actions, and competitor suits involving allegations of price-fixing, monopolization, and other anticompetitive conduct. Her litigation experience spans federal courts across the country and covers a wide range of industries, including technology, healthcare, agriculture, and consumer products. In addition to her courtroom work, Valarie regularly advises clients facing investigations by the DOJ and FTC, and she has guided companies through merger challenges and conduct inquiries. Valarie is recognized by Chambers USA and The Best Lawyers in America for her antitrust expertise and is a frequent speaker on litigation strategy and competition law developments.

Dr. Wong is a member of NERA’s Antitrust and Competition practice and NERA’s Health Care and Life Sciences practice. Dr. Wong is a superbly trained economist with expertise in antitrust, industrial organization, healthcare, and applied microeconomics and econometrics. Dr. Wong has a strong track-record, and he brings extensive experience across many matters in state and federal courts, in private arbitrations, and before state and federal antitrust enforcement and regulatory agencies.

In the antitrust and competition space, Dr. Wong has authored more than 10 expert reports in
antitrust matters involving U.S. Sherman Act and Clayton Act (and equivalent state law) claims,
and he has testified multiple times at a live trial or hearing, including an antitrust jury trial in U.S.
District Court. Among Dr. Wong’s notable antitrust litigation experience, he has worked on
monopolization cases in the life sciences industry (Tevra v. Bayer), hospital industry (U.S. v. Atrium),
and IT industry (FTC v. Surescripts; In Re Surescripts), and he has worked on a wide variety of other
antitrust issues, including exclusive dealing, bundling and tying, labor restraints, vertical merger and
contracting restraints, predatory pricing, and fraud. In addition, Dr. Wong has done extensive work
in the mergers and acquisitions space, including testimony in U.S. District Court for the
GTCR/Surmodics merger challenged by the FTC. Beyond that case, Dr. Wong has worked on many
mergers and joint ventures, including work on more than 100 healthcare transactions, multiple
HSR Second Requests, multiple merger litigations in U.S. District and state courts, and numerous
other transactions in a variety of industries, such as agriculture, technology, and insurance.

In the healthcare and life sciences space, in addition to work that sits at the intersection of antitrust and healthcare, Dr. Wong has worked on a variety of matters relating to hospitals, physicians, and health insurance. Of note, Dr. Wong has provided analysis and testimony on commercial damages for multiple cases involving “usual, customary, and reasonable” rates and other reimbursement disputes, and he has testified before a state legislature concerning healthcare policy issues.

Prior to joining NERA, Dr. Wong received a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Economics from Stanford University, and a B.A. in Business Economics from University of California Los Angeles, and he has prior professional experience in healthcare analytics and in investment management. In addition, Dr. Wong has taught economics at the Anderson Graduate School of Management at the University of California Riverside, and he has conducted academic research on a variety of antitrust and healthcare issues, including published articles in journals such as Population Health Management, Loyola University Chicago Law Journal, Antitrust Chronicle, and Competition. Dr. Wong regularly presents to academic and professional audiences, and he has given seminars to a number of well-known organizations, such as the U.S. Department of Justice, the American Society of Health Economists, the American Health Lawyers Association, and the American Bar Association.