Richard Goetz is a partner at O’Melveny & Myers, where he is firmwide co-chair of the Litigation Department. He defends some of the world’s best-known companies—pharmaceutical, medical device, computer, insurance, consumer products, food—in complex, multimillion-dollar legal challenges. He has also served on O’Melveny’s Policy Committee—the firm’s board of directors—and its Executive Committee.
In his 40 years at O’Melveny, Mr. Goetz has led the defense in international disputes both in U.S. courts and in an arbitration in Japan; entertainment and intellectual property disputes for a motion picture studio, a film director, a television producer, a sports marketing company, and a defense contractor; environmental actions for an electric utility, a steel company, and an automobile manufacturer; construction disputes for a natural resources company; and securities actions for commercial and investment banks.
Mr. Goetz has taught on class action issues at Rutter Group conferences in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and has lectured at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and at Harvard Law School.
Mr. Goetz is co-chair of the Pacific Council on International Policy. For the Council he has served as an official observer of the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, proceedings against those charged with planning the 9/11attacks, and co-chaired a task force that recommended changes to those proceedings, some of which Congress has enacted.
EDUCATION: Dartmouth College, A.B.; University of Chicago Law School,