Richard Goetz

Richard B. Goetz defends some of the world’s best-known businesses—including pharmaceutical, medical device, computer, insurance, consumer products, and food companies—in complex, multimillion-dollar legal challenges. At the pleadings stage and at trial, he has defeated allegations of negligence, false advertising, improper labeling, defective manufacturing, and personal injury. Benchmark Litigation calls him a national “Litigation Star,” The Legal 500: United States named him to its inaugural “Hall of Fame” in 2017, Chambers USA recognizes him as a “Leading Lawyer,” and BTI recognizes him as a Client Service All-Star.

Rich is the Firmwide Co-Chair of O’Melveny’s Litigation Department and previously chaired the Firm’s Consumer Class Actions, Product Liability/Mass Torts, and Insurance Practices. He also serves on the Firm’s Executive Committee.

Rich’s clients include:

• Johnson & Johnson
• Colgate-Palmolive
• Amylin Pharmaceuticals
• AstraZeneca
• Bristol-Myers Squibb
• Chubb
• Kia Motors America

Rich is a contributing editor for Product Liability Litigation: Current Law, Strategies, and Best Practices (Practising Law Institute 2015) and for the class action chapters of California Practice Guide: Civil Procedure Before Trial (The Rutter Group).

He frequently lectures at legal conferences, and has lectured at the UCLA School of Engineering and Applied Science and at Harvard Law School. He is a member of the American Law Institute, which is responsible for formulating the Restatements of the Law and updating the Uniform Commercial Code and other model codes.

Rich has been an observer at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, proceedings against those charged with plotting the 9/11 attacks, and co-chairs a bipartisan task force that has recommended changes to those proceedings, some of which Congress has enacted. He chairs the Board of Directors of Volunteers of America of Los Angeles, one of Southern California’s largest providers of services to the homeless, at-risk youth, and others in need.

He is on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of The Pacific Council on International Policy, a leading non-partisan foreign affairs organization. And he was a longtime member of the Los Angeles County Bar Judicial Appointments Committee, serving under both Republican and Democratic Governors.

Bar Admissions:

• California

Court Admissions:

• US Supreme Court
• US Court of Appeals for the Sixth, Ninth and Tenth Circuits
• US District Court for the Central, Eastern, Northern and Southern Districts of California
• US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan

Education:

• University of Chicago, J.D., 1984: Associate Editor, Law Review, 1982–84
• Dartmouth College, A.B., 1981: summa cum laude; Phi Beta Kappa