Eugene S. Litvinoff is a partner in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP and is based in the Firm’s Silicon Valley office. Gene focuses his practice on antitrust matters, internal investigations and white-collar criminal defense.
Gene represents companies in criminal investigations and civil class action lawsuits concerning allegations of antitrust price-fixing and bid-rigging. He has provided antitrust compliance counseling to senior executives and general counsel and has conducted internal corporate investigations into possible unlawful activities. Gene also has experience representing a board of directors in a stock option backdating shareholder derivative suit and former corporate executives in an IRS tax audit and trial. In addition, he represents, on a pro bono basis, indigent criminal defendants in the Northern District of California.
Gene has tried numerous felony jury trials and negotiated plea dispositions in hundreds of cases. He has extensive experience drafting motions, appeals, and search warrants, as well as arguing motions at motions hearings, evidentiary hearings and sentencings. Prior to joining the Firm, Gene was an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of California where he investigated and prosecuted criminal cases in the General Crimes Section. Gene also has experience working as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division where he investigated and criminally prosecuted complex international cartel conspiracies under the federal antitrust laws. Notably, Gene was a member of the prosecutorial team that investigated and prosecuted semiconductor chip manufacturers for price-fixing in the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) market.
Gene received his B.A. in Economics and Rhetoric from the University of California at Berkeley and his J.D., cum laude, from the University of California Hastings College of the Law. While in law school, he served as the Senior Notes Editor of the Hastings Law Journal. Gene also clerked for the Honorable D. Lowell Jensen of the United States District Court, Northern District of California and the Honorable Melvin Brunetti of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. As a law student, he was a judicial law extern for the Honorable Alex Kozinski of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable Martin J. Jenkins of the United States District Court, Northern District of California.
As an adjunct instructor, Gene has also taught courses in Legal Writing and Research and Moot Court at the University of California Hastings College of the Law.
Gene is a member of the California bar and is admitted to practice in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Northern and Southern Districts of California. Additionally, he is a member of the Santa Clara County Bar Association and currently serves on the Judiciary Committee.
Education
- University of California-Hastings College of Law, J.D. (cum laude), 2000
- University of California-Berkeley, B.A., 1997
