Jeffrey Fowler

Jeffrey Fowler, Chair of O’Melveny’s Electronic Discovery and Document Retention Practice Group, is a Chambers USA–ranked litigation partner specializing in the high-stakes intersection of e-discovery, information management, cybersecurity, and privacy law. In an age when a company’s obligation to hand over millions of sensitive emails and documents in discovery is arguably its most common data security breach, clients entrust Jeff to protect them from the real-world risks associated with this increasingly specialized and intrusive exercise.

A seasoned general litigator, Jeff’s clients engage him to serve as coordinating discovery counsel in complex, multi-front litigations and government investigations. In this role, Jeff is the sole discovery spokesperson for his clients, communicating a consistent message across a portfolio of litigation matters, coordinating discovery strategy from one case to the next, and ensuring compliance with national and international privacy laws.

He is one of the country’s few practitioners with deep, hands-on experience litigating evidence spoliation and other e-discovery issues of first impression. Clients not only enlist Jeff to handle cases from the start; they tap him to parachute into existing matters, relying on his expertise to defend sanctions motions, quell accusations of discovery abuse, and provide behind-the-scenes strategic advice.

Jeff is a noted speaker on e-discovery and information technology issues, and over the past decade has given more than 60 presentations at conferences sponsored by the Practising Law Institute, Stafford Teleconferences, and LegalTech New York and West Coast, among others. He is also the co-author of the BNA publication “Preserving Electronically Stored Information: A Practical Approach.”

In addition to founding the E-Discovery and Document Retention practice group, Jeff is an active member of the Products Liability, Healthcare, and Data Security and Privacy practice groups. All told, Jeff has lent his expertise to more than 300 litigation matters, including consumer class actions, antitrust lawsuits and investigations, products liability matters, qui tam actions arising from the False Claims Act, labor class actions, and investigations by the DOJ, SEC, and various other state, national, and international authorities.

Experience:

• Serving as coordinating discovery counsel for a global food and beverage company, defending that client in a variety of different complex litigations and regulatory proceedings in various jurisdictions, including series of consumer class actions challenging the labeling and advertising of certain health and nutrition claims.
• Serving as coordinating discovery counsel for one of the nation’s largest managed care organizations, which involves handling discovery across a variety of large and small matters in various jurisdictions throughout the country, including qui tam actions and investigations arising from the Medicare Advantage program.
• Responding to the Federal Trade Commission’s HSR Second Request and related European Commission obligations in one of the largest technology mergers in recent history.
• Serving as lead discovery counsel for a global footwear company in California coordinated proceedings and multidistrict litigation against claims for alleged personal injuries from defective products.
• Serving as the lead lawyer handling discovery for a global pharmaceutical companyinvolved in a series of products liability class actions.

Bar Admissions:

• California

Court Admissions:

• US Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
• US District Court, Central and Northern Districts of California

Education:

• University of California, Hastings College of Law,  J.D., 1994
• University of California at Berkeley,  B.A., 1991