Darren J. Robbins

Darren Robbins is a founding partner of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP. Over the last two decades, he has served as lead counsel in more than 100 securities class actions and has recovered billions of dollars for injured shareholders.

Darren served as lead counsel in In re Am. Realty Capital Props., Inc. Litig., a case arising out of ARCP’s manipulative accounting practices, and obtained a $1.025 billion recovery. For five years, he and the litigation team prosecuted nine different claims for violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Securities Act of 1933, involving seven different stock or debt offerings and two mergers. The recovery represents the highest percentage of damages of any major PSLRA case prior to trial and includes the largest personal contributions by individual defendants in history.

Darren has also obtained significant recoveries in a number of actions arising out of wrongdoing related to the issuance of residential mortgage-backed securities, including a case against Goldman Sachs ($272 million recovery). Darren also served as co-lead counsel in connection with a $627 million recovery for investors in In re Wachovia Preferred Securities & Bond/Notes Litig., one of the largest credit-crisis settlements involving Securities Act claims. Darren also recently served as lead counsel in Schuh v. HCA Holdings, Inc., which resulted in a $215 million recovery for shareholders.

One of the hallmarks of Darren’s practice has been his focus on corporate governance reform. In UnitedHealth, a securities fraud class action arising out of an options backdating scandal, Darren represented lead plaintiff CalPERS and was able to obtain the cancellation of more than 3.6 million stock options held by the company’s former CEO and secure a record $925 million cash recovery for shareholders. Darren also negotiated sweeping corporate governance reforms, including the election of a shareholder-nominated director to the company’s board of directors, a mandatory holding period for shares acquired via option exercise, and compensation reforms that tied executive pay to performance. Recently, Darren led a shareholder derivative action brought by several pension funds on behalf of Community Health Systems, Inc. The case yielded a $60 million payment to Community Health, as well as corporate governance reforms that included two shareholder-nominated directors, the creation and appointment of a Healthcare Law Compliance Coordinator, the implementation of an executive compensation clawback in the event of a restatement, the establishment of an insider trading controls committee, and the adoption of a political expenditure disclosure policy.

Darren was named California Lawyer’s Attorney of the Year and has been recognized as one of the nation’s top securities litigators by numerous organizations and publications, including one of the Top 100 Lawyers Shaping the Future by the Daily Journal and one of the Young Litigators 45 and Under by The American Lawyer. The American Lawyer commended him for helping “set the pace for [his] peers,” and Chambers USA called him “a prominent figure in the field of securities litigation” and “one of the leaders of the plaintiff Bar.”

Darren is a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars around the world on securities litigation and corporate governance reform. He advises institutional investors in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Middle East, Asia, and the European Union.

Darren was awarded Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts degrees in Economics from the University of Southern California, and received his Juris Doctor degree from Vanderbilt Law School.

• Leading Lawyer, The Legal 500, 2020
• Super Lawyer, Super Lawyers Magazine, 2013-2020
• Leading Lawyer in America, Lawdragon, 2006-2007, 2009-2020
• Local Litigation Star, Benchmark Litigation, 2013-2018, 2020
• Southern California Best Lawyer, Best Lawyers®, 2012-2020
• Best Lawyer in America, Best Lawyers®, 2010-2020
• Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyer, Lawdragon, 2019
• Recommended Lawyer, The Legal 500, 2011, 2017, 2019
• Leading Lawyer, Chambers USA, 2014-2019
• Benchmark California Star, Benchmark Litigation, 2019
• State Litigation Star, Benchmark Litigation, 2019
• Lawyer of the Year, Best Lawyers®, 2017
• Influential Business Leader, San Diego Business Journal, 2017
• Litigator of the Year, Our City San Diego, 2017
• Recognized as one of the Top 50 Lawyers in San Diego, Super Lawyers Magazine, 2015
• Recognized as one of the Top 100 Lawyers Shaping the Future, Daily Journal, 2008
• Recognized as a Young Litigator 45 and Under, The American Lawyer, 2007
• 2003 Attorney of the Year Award, presented by California Lawyer, March 2004

• Vanderbilt School of Law, J.D., 1993
• University of Southern California, M.A., 1990
• University of Southern California, B.S., 1990

• California
• United States Supreme Court
• United States Courts of Appeals for the Second and Ninth Circuits
• United States District Courts for the Northern, Central and Southern Districts of California
• United States District Court for the District of Colorado
• United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin

Notable Cases

Publications

• Darren J. Robbins, Reining in Unicorns: Protecting Pensioners and Entrepreneurs From Fraud, The Recorder, Apr. 9, 2018.
• Darren Robbins, James Jaconette & Michael Albert, After Cyan: Creative Lawyering Can’t Displace Clear Statute, Law360, Mar. 26, 2018.
• Travis E. Downs III, Benny C. Goodman III, Jay P. Lefkowitz, Erik W. Luedeke, Darren J. Robbins & Matthew Solum, Chapter 4: Mediation Submissions by Plaintiffs and Defendants, in Financial Services Mediation Answer Book 4-1 (Layn R. Phillips et al. ed., 2017).