Melvin R. Goldman is one of the nation’s leading civil litigators. He specializes in the defense of securities and antitrust litigation.

He has represented a wide range of companies, financial institutions, and their directors and officers in defense of class and derivative litigation and SEC actions involving a variety of accounting and financial disclosure issues. He has also been retained by several law firms and accounting firms in defense of securities claims made against them. Mr. Goldman has lectured widely on securities litigation topics and taught a course on securities litigation at Stanford Law School.

Mr. Goldman has extensive experience in antitrust defense. He has successfully defended corporations and their officers and directors before juries in antitrust suits, securities and fraud actions, and other complex commercial lawsuits.

He has taught trial technique to antitrust attorneys as a faculty member of a program sponsored by the Columbia University School of Law. He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, and for the past 25 years, he has been listed in the publication The Best Lawyers in America. He is a past president of the Bar Association of San Francisco. Recently he was voted one of Northern California’s Top One Hundred Lawyers (September 2007 San Francisco Magazine). He is ranked as one of the leading lawyers in securities litigation and in antitrust in California, and also as a leading lawyer for business, in Chambers (2007). In addition, Mr. Goldman has been listed for 25 years in The Best Lawyers in America (2008) as a leader in the field of Bet-the-Company Litigation.

• Defended Bergen Brunswig, a drug wholesaler, in a jury trial in federal court in Chicago. The claims of a class of all retail pharmacists in the U.S. were dismissed at the close of plaintiffs’ case, and the dismissal was affirmed by the Court of Appeals.
• Represented Bank of America and Wells Fargo Bank in the defense of various shareholder class and derivative actions arising from loan losses and other adverse financial disclosures.
• Represented Bank of America in an antitrust lawsuit brought by American Express in federal in New York
• Retained by The Coca-Cola Company to defend antitrust claims of transshippers, and by Barnes & Noble to defend Robinson-Patman claims by retail book stores, both cases brought in federal court in San Francisco. Cases settled following summary judgments for defendants.
• Represented Boards of Directors in investigating stock options issues.
• Represented the Special Litigation Committee of Cisco Systems in its investigation of shareholder claims regarding financial reporting.