Gideon Schor is a partner in the firm's New York office, where his practice focuses on securities and commercial litigation, intellectual property, appeals, compliance matters, white collar crime, and internal investigations.
As a securities litigator, Gideon has had numerous victories, including dismissal of a Section 11 action against Xinhua Finance Media in the Southern District of New York, dismissal of an M&A action against Goldman Sachs in Hawaii state court (followed by a fee award to Goldman Sachs of $1.1 million), and dismissal of a derivative action against Hewlett-Packard in the Northern District of California followed by an affirmance in the Ninth Circuit. In Delaware M&A actions against 3Com, Gideon won a denial of expedition followed by a denial of both expedition and interlocutory appeal. In 2007-08, Gideon represented Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg in Facebook et al. v. Eduardo Saverin. Currently, Gideon represents Google and its directors in class action and derivative litigation in the Delaware Court of Chancery.
As an appellate litigator, Gideon has won dozens of cases. Most recently, Gideon persuaded the Second Circuit to vacate a decision denying recovery against a preliminary injunction bond. Adopting Gideon's argument, the court concluded that the American Rule does not bar recovery of attorney's fees spent complying with a wrongful preliminary injunction—the first such holding in the federal courts. On remand, the district court granted recovery of the bond in full, and Gideon persuaded the Second Circuit to affirm.
In the U.S. Supreme Court, Gideon successfully petitioned for certiorari and argued in U.S. ex rel. Eisenstein v. City of New York, which concerned appellate jurisdiction. Gideon has also made numerous amicus filings, including a brief on behalf of geneticist Eric Lander that the Justices mentioned repeatedly at oral argument in Ass'n for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics (AMP). The arguments adopted by the AMP Court mirror those in Gideon's amicus brief.
Gideon joined Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati from Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB), where he served as director of litigation for the Americas from 2003 to 2005. During his tenure, he was responsible for the company's civil litigation docket in North and South America, specializing in securities underwriting, investment banking, derivatives, asset management, and real estate. He conducted numerous internal investigations, chaired CSFB's e-discovery project, and worked with counsel at other banks on industry-wide matters.
Prior to CSFB, Gideon spent 13 years in the civil division of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, where he was appointed chief appellate attorney in 1999. He supervised all of the federal government's civil appellate litigation in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, including recommendations to the U.S. Solicitor General concerning Supreme Court review. Besides litigating more than 200 appeals, he maintained a steady trial practice, representing dozens of federal agencies in complex regulatory and constitutional matters and focusing on commercial fraud, the False Claims Act, and civil RICO. In 2001, he received the Justice Department's Award for Superior Performance. His work in the government resulted in 99 reported decisions and 50 other Web-accessible decisions.
From 1989 to 1990, Gideon clerked for the Honorable J. Edward Lumbard of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
A frequent lecturer on electronic discovery, Gideon has been an adjunct professor at New York Law School and Fordham Law School, where he taught conflict of laws and legal writing, respectively. Gideon has also served on the Amicus Committee of the Securities Industry Association.
