Litigation Leaders: Darren Robbins on the Importance of ‘Trial-Readiness’ in Complex Civil Litigation

By Ross Todd
The AmLaw Litigation Daily
Reprinted with permission from ALM.

May 19, 2025

Welcome to another edition of our Litigation Leaders series, featuring the litigation practice leaders at some of the biggest and most innovative law firms in the country.

Meet Darren Robbins, founding partner of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, who is based in San Diego. Robbins Geller has topped the list of top plaintiff-side law firms issued by ISS Securities Class Action Services four out of the past five years. Robbins and partner Jim Barz landed Litigator of the Week honors in 2021 for the $1.21 billion dollar settlement they secured for investors in a securities class action against Valeant Pharmaceuticals.

Lit Daily: Tell us a little about yourself— perhaps even a thing or two your partners would be surprised to learn about you.

I grew up in San Bernardino, California. My dad owned and operated a music shop in town. He’s my role model and one of the hardest-working people I’ve ever known. No one ever gave him a thing. He instilled in us a deep appreciation for hard work and how important it is to treat everyone with respect and decency. I never once saw him take advantage of anyone or any situation. He is all about treating everyone fairly and not dealing with those who don’t. I think his story is very much the American Dream in many ways: choosing to work hard and do the right thing, even when no one is watching. I try to emulate him every day and am grateful for him and his sacrifices.

You told my predecessor back in 2016 that roughly one-third of your time was spent on client outreach, one-third is in court, and one-third running the firm. Does that breakdown still hold?

Quite similar today. The litigation front has been especially busy. We had a number of very significant cases progress towards trial in the past few years—Twitter, which secured $809.5 million for investors; TuSimple, a $189 million case we settled last year involving very complex injunctive relief against a company allegedly absconding with funds and IP; and two just before trial last year against Apple and Under Armour. This past year UnitedHealth and another Medicare-related shareholder litigation in Texas have been the focus of much of my time.

What does the firm’s management structure look like?

We really operate by consensus. We have a management committee, and all of us have worked together for a very long time, so there’s mutual understanding and respect. We are incredibly focused on being the top firm protecting investors and consumers in the nation, and that goal really informs all our choices, from case selection to hiring to how we allocate resources to client service to our focus on trial-readiness.

How big is Robbins Geller and where are most of your litigators concentrated geographically?

We’re around 400 people, a little over half of whom are litigators. Our largest practice group is our securities litigation group, which includes not only more than 100 securities lawyers but also a team of top-notch forensic accountants, damage analysts, economists, investigators and paralegals who help us advise institutional investors around the globe. We’re strategically located across the U.S. in the areas where we practice the most. So we have two California offices, in San Diego and San Francisco, and we’re in Chicago, Delaware, Florida, Nashville, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Most of our litigators are concentrated in our San Diego, New York and Florida offices.

What is the firm’s general process for evaluating a potential piece of litigation and counseling an institutional investor considering filing suit?

Case evaluation is critical for us, obviously. It’s especially critical because every securities action case is going to be intensely defended by the top defense firms, who are well-resourced and very creative. Our clients understand this, so we work hard to ascertain the unique challenge of any potential case and evaluate the potential paths to success from the beginning. We vet hundreds of cases every year, and we recommend a small percentage of them as opportunities for our clients to take action. With how the SEC has been scaled back and with regulatory enforcement generally on the wane, the private right of action is more important than ever to institutional investors. The Supreme Court has referred to investors’ right to bring a securities fraud suit as a “complement” to federal enforcement. Right now, it seems private enforcement is the primary enforcement mechanism.

What do you see as hallmarks of Robbins Geller litigators? What makes you different, especially from your competitors in the plaintiffs’ bar?

We have fearless players at our firm who are committed to getting it right. They are the ones who practice until long after the sun goes down. An unwavering commitment to excellence is a core ethos at the firm. Vindicating the rights of defrauded consumers and investors runs deep here. So we have a special group that includes many former federal and state prosecutors and federal defenders with deep trial experience, appellate lawyers who’ve collectively argued hundreds of cases in the U.S. courts of appeal and Supreme Court and former SEC lawyers, all of whom understand the importance of trial-readiness in a complex civil action.

It’s hard to find that in any plaintiffs’ firm at this scale. These are folks who get the details consistently right and won’t let go until it’s right. That’s what our clients expect and deserve. It’s an honor to work alongside them.

In what three areas of litigation do you have the deepest bench? (I know it’s hard, but please name just three.)

If forced to name three, it’s securities, consumer and shareholder rights.

Our securities litigation practice group led the NERA and ISS rankings last year for being the top plaintiffs’ firm in the space, which we’ve done almost every year for the better part of a decade.

Our consumer practice group, led by my partner Paul Geller, has been at the forefront of some of the most impactful consumer litigation that touches on the public interest. Their work on the opioids public health crisis, privacy harms, social media’s impact on youth and drug-pricing schemes has recovered billions for harmed communities and individuals. It’s something we’re very proud of as a firm.

What were two or three of the firm’s biggest in-court wins in the past year, and can you cite tactics that exemplify your firm’s approach?

Last year, we resolved two securities fraud class actions just short of trial and secured record recoveries in each.

In Apple, my partners Shawn Williams and Dan Pfefferbaum secured the largest securities class action recovery in over a decade in the Northern District of California. It was a hard-fought case that turned on CEO Tim Cook’s comments to investors about the company’s prospects in China. The case was settled for $490 million just before trial. Likewise, in June 2024, just a few weeks before trial was set to start in Maryland, another Robbins Geller trial team settled a securities fraud class action against Under Armour for $434 million, together with a package of corporate governance reforms that included fundamental changes to the company’s executive compensation practices as well as splitting the CEO and chairman roles. These types of reforms are an effective vehicle to address the corporate governance deficiencies that underlie—and are one of the root causes of—almost every securities fraud.

My partners Bobby Henssler, Mike Dowd and Sam Sheldon led the trial team in Under Armour. Mike is one of the best securities class action trial lawyers ever and a former AUSA; Bobby is a dynamic trial lawyer and former federal defender; and Sam is a former US magistrate judge and former AUSA, as well. Our trial team was prepared and eager to try the case and the result we achieved for the class showed that defendants knew it.

I think that fighting spirit that we scale across every one of our cases is what makes a difference for our clients.

I know the firm prides itself on its capacity to take cases to trial. Have you had cases go to trial lately? Do you have any potential trials coming up?

I just mentioned the Under Armour and Apple cases. We had another case—AltaMesa—go to trial in Texas last year as well, right around the same time. That case settled in the middle of trial, and we recovered $126 million for investors—the largest-ever securities class action recovery involving a SPAC, often shady investment vehicles that were all-the-rage a few years ago. We have three more securities class actions set for trial in the second half of 2025.

We know that preparation and practice are the hallmarks of success. Our team loves the process of preparing. We all remember as kids the players who carried their playbook everywhere they went, all dog-eared and marked-up. That approach makes a big difference for our clients. The defense understands what they’re getting with us. For the last two decades, this approach has allowed our clients to secure premium results year in and after year out.

Reprinted with permission from the May 19, 2025 edition of the AMLAW LITIGATION DAILY © 2025 ALM Global Properties, LLC. All rights reserved. Further duplication without permission is
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