Judson E. Lobdell

Judson Lobdell has extensive experience in the fields of securities litigation and criminal law, including securities class actions, shareholder derivative actions, SEC enforcement actions, criminal jury trials, DOJ and SEC investigations, and internal investigations. He is a former Assistant United States Attorney who has tried more than 30 cases to juries and argued cases in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the D.C. Court of Appeals.

Mr. Lobdell has lectured and written extensively in the area of securities litigation. He co-taught the spring 2017 Securities Litigation course at Stanford Law School. He is the primary author of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s current guide to stockholder derivative litigation and one of two primary authors of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s current guide to merger litigation. 

Mr. Lobdell received his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1989. He received his B.A., with distinction, from Stanford University in 1985.

Representative Matters

Mr. Lobdell’s representative litigation matters include defending the following entities and individuals:

• Yahoo! Inc. and its board of directors in securities class actions and derivative actions in state and federal courts in California and Delaware arising out of cyber-security incidents and Yahoo!’s sale of its operating assets to Verizon;
• DFC Global Corp. in a securities class action pending in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania;
• First Solar, Inc. and certain directors and officers in securities class actions pending in the District of Arizona;
• DaVita Inc. and its directors in shareholder derivative actions in the District of Colorado;
• The Cooper Companies, Inc., and its directors and officers in securities class actions and shareholder derivative actions in the Northern District of California, which were dismissed with prejudice in 2013;
• SunPower Corporation and its directors and officers in a securities class action in the Northern District of California and shareholder derivative actions in Delaware and California;
• The outside directors of Countrywide Financial Corporation in securities class actions and shareholder derivative actions;
• Yahoo! Inc. in securities class action and shareholder derivative matters, including a shareholder derivative action pending in the Delaware Court of Chancery; a federal securities class action dismissed with prejudice, Brodsky v. Yahoo! Inc., et al., 630 F. Supp. 2d 1104 (N.D. Cal. 2009); and a derivative action dismissed with prejudice in the Delaware Court of Chancery, Jacobs v. Yang, No. 206-N, 2004 Del.Ch. LEXIS 117 (Del. Ch. Aug. 2, 2004) and affirmed by the Supreme Court of Delaware, Jacobs v. Yang, 867 A.2d 902; 2005 Del. LEXIS 38 (Del., Jan. 21, 2005).
• Patricia Dunn, the former Chairwoman of the Hewlett-Packard Board of Directors, in the successful defense of criminal and related civil litigation;
• The Clorox Company and its directors and officers in various class actions and shareholder derivative actions;
• Mentor Corporation and its directors in shareholder class actions arising from $1.1-billion acquisition by Johnson & Johnson where summary judgment was granted in favor of defendants;
• The outside directors of Amazon.com, Inc. in a securities class action in the Western District of Washington;
• Barnes & Noble, Inc. in a nationwide antitrust and unfair competition lawsuit; and
• Mutual fund investment advisers in SEC investigations that were terminated with no enforcement action.