Rakesh specializes in delivering favorable results to clients at every stage of litigation in matters ranging from antitrust to product liability to consumer class actions.
Recently, Rakesh was second-chair trial counsel for Microsoft in the FTC’s challenge to the $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision. Rakesh directed the legal and expert strategy and handled several witnesses at trial, including Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, and both of Microsoft’s economic experts. Rakesh then served as lead counsel for Microsoft in the FTC’s appeal in the Ninth Circuit.
Rakesh also recently helped achieve a major victory for the NFL and its 32 member teams when a California federal judge granted a post-trial motion for judgment as a matter of law, overturning a jury’s earlier $4.7 billion verdict in the class action lawsuit that had challenged the League’s collective licensing of broadcast rights to NFL games, and was the lead defense negotiator in the groundbreaking and highly publicized 2024 settlement to major antitrust lawsuits filed against the NCAA and its five athletic conferences by current and former student-athletes.
Rakesh has helped deliver high-profile trial victories for Bayer and the NCAA; obtained significant summary judgment victories for Bayer and Georgia-Pacific; and secured full dismissal of a groundbreaking enforcement action by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau before any discovery was taken.
In recognition of his diverse practice, Rakesh has been named a “Rising Star” by the National Law Journal and “Future Star by Benchmark. He has been ranked by Chambers and Legal 500 in “Antitrust” and “Sports” and by Law360 for “Sports and Betting.” He has also appeared on Lawdragon’s “500 Leading Lawyers in America” and “500 Leading Litigators in America” lists for the last two consecutive years.
Before joining the firm, Rakesh was a Special Assistant to the President and Associate Counsel in the Office of White House Counsel, where he provided legal advice and strategic counseling to the Obama Administration on its domestic policy agenda. He also helped to develop and implement the government’s litigation strategy in cases arising under the Affordable Care Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act. He is regularly consulted and quoted by the media as an expert on executive branch legal issues.
Rakesh began his career clerking for Justice Elena Kagan on the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Rakesh is active in the legal community. He sits on the Boards of the Legal Aid Society for the District of Columbia and the Second Look Project, and is an editor of the Green Bag. He also serves on the Nominations Committee of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association-DC, and previously served as a Director of APABA-DC’s Education Fund.
Rakesh’s other notable representations include:
- Lead counsel for the Executive Council of the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake in Hengle v. Asner, a consumer class action filed in the Eastern District of Virginia in April 2019. Initial motions practice resulted in plaintiffs dropping all claims for money damages (including treble damages claims under RICO) against the Tribe’s economic development arms. Rakesh then led several years of further motions practice on plaintiffs’ injunctive claims, including an appeal and oral argument by Rakesh in the Fourth Circuit, that resulted in the preclusion of plaintiffs’ remaining RICO claim. The parties then reached a nationwide class action settlement in which the Tribe paid $0 into the settlement fund and $0 in attorneys’ fees.
- Trial counsel in Todd McNair v. NCAA. Obtained a defense jury verdict in state court in Los Angeles. McNair, a former University of Southern California assistant football coach, was implicated by the NCAA in the Reggie Bush benefits scandal. He sued the NCAA for defamation. Wilkinson Stekloff took over the representation after the NCAA had lost three pre-trial appeals, including on the issue of McNair’s ability to show falsity and malice. At trial, Rakesh examined a key defense witness and cross-examined the plaintiff’s sole damages expert. The jury ultimately rejected McNair’s claims. The trial was covered extensively in the media, including ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and the LA Times. After the jury verdict, trial Judge Frederick Shaller called the advocacy in the case “the best I’ve seen since I’ve been a judge.”
Updated Sep 2024
