Daniel R. Adler is a litigation associate in the Los Angeles office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.  He specializes in complex commercial and constitutional litigation in trial and appellate courts.  He has briefed more than 50 merits appeals for federal and state courts across the country and has argued before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the California Courts of Appeal.

Highlights include:

• Class actions.  Mr. Adler regularly defends clients in high-stakes class actions.  He has defended, among other clients, a pharmaceutical company against antitrust claims, a technology company against securities claims, a boat and motorcycle manufacturer against manufacturing-defect and mislabeling claims, and insurers against claims for business income lost during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Mr. Adler also frequently challenges orders granting motions for class certification.  In one case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated an order certifying an antitrust class seeking billions.  In re Zetia (Ezetimibe) Antitrust Litigation, 7 F.4th 227 (4th Cir. 2021).  On remand, Mr. Adler persuaded the district court not to recertify the class.
• Insurance.  Mr. Adler has extensive experience representing insurers in trial courts and on appeal.  He won affirmance of judgments in cases brought on behalf of putative classes of policyholders in California and Washington seeking business income lost during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Mudpie, Inc. v. Travelers Casualty Insurance Company of America, 15 F.4th 885 (9th Cir. 2021); Hill & Stout, PLLC v. Mutual of Enumclaw Insurance Company, 515 P.3d 525 (Wash. 2022).  Mr. Adler also persuaded the Ninth Circuit that a large class of auto-insurance policyholders should not be certified because it was impossible to determine whether they were all injured on a classwide basis.  Lara v. First National Insurance Company of America, 25 F.4th 1134 (9th Cir. 2022).  In another of Mr. Adler’s appeals, the California Court of Appeal decided that the California Insurance Commissioner had impermissibly ordered a retroactive refund of premiums to policyholders.  State Farm General Insurance Company v. Lara, 71 Cal. App. 5th 148 (2021).
• Securities.  Mr. Adler secured a unanimous decision from the Delaware Supreme Court reversing the judgment of the Court of Chancery in a high-profile appraisal action.  DFC Global Corp. v. Muirfield Value Partners, L.P., 172 A.3d 346 (Del. 2017).  He also recently persuaded the United States Supreme Court to grant certiorari in a dispute over the applicability of certain securities statutes to direct listings.  Slack Technologies, LLC v. Pirani (2022).
• Voting rights.  Mr. Adler defended a municipality, at both trial and on appeal, against claims brought under the California Voting Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause.  Mr. Adler has also counseled other California cities threatened with litigation under the California Voting Rights Act and section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act.
• Intellectual property litigation.  Mr. Adler was part of the team that won a complete defense verdict for a major wireless carrier in a patent trial litigated in the District of Nebraska.  Mr. Adler successfully defended the verdict before the Federal Circuit, which enlarged the scope of the wireless carrier’s victory at trial by holding the plaintiff’s patent claims were ineligible for patent protection under 35 U.S.C. § 101.  Prism Technologies LLC v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., 696 F. App’x 1014 (Fed. Cir. 2017).

Mr. Adler also maintains an active pro bono practice.  Highlights include:

• First Amendment.  Mr. Adler won dismissal of a complaint filed against a nonprofit by a political group for an alleged violation of the First Amendment.  Pasadena Republican Club. v. Western Justice Center, 985 F.3d 1161 (9th Cir. 2021).  He has also counseled other clients facing potential First Amendment litigation.
• Fourth Amendment.  Mr. Adler represents the R Street Institute and the Cato Institute in opposing the United States Customs and Border Protection’s policy of searching electronic devices at the border, including at international airports, without even reasonable suspicion.
• Prisoners’ and Detainees’ Rights.  Mr. Adler secured an opinion holding that a former prisoner’s claim of indifference to his medical needs was not barred by the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s exhaustion requirement.  Jackson v. Fong, 870 F.3d 928 (9th Cir. 2017).  In another appeal, Mr. Adler won reversal of the dismissal of a former immigration detainee’s claim that federal immigration officials violated his constitutional right of access to the courts.  Garcia v. Johnson, 840 F. App’x 255 (9th Cir. 2021).
• Criminal appeals.  Mr. Adler has represented former prosecutors and public defenders serving as amici curiae in support of nonviolent drug offenders seeking to withdraw their guilty pleas on the ground that their counsel did not advise them of the immigration consequences of those pleas.  In one case, Mr. Adler helped to persuade the California Court of Appeal to grant the defendant’s habeas petition.  In re Hernandez, 33 Cal. App. 5th 530 (2019).  In others, he helped to persuade the California Supreme Court to reverse orders denying defendants’ motions to vacate their convictions.  People v. Espinoza, 14 Cal. 5th 311 (2023); People v. Vivar, 11 Cal. 5th 510 (2021).  Those decisions will protect other noncitizens from the consequences of their uninformed guilty pleas.  Mr. Adler has also represented a client in a direct criminal appeal challenging convictions for attempted murder and first-degree assault.

Mr. Adler joined Gibson Dunn after serving as a law clerk to Judge Paul J. Watford of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Mr. Adler graduated from Columbia Law School in 2014, where he served as an editor of the Columbia Law Review and earned the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Prize for achieving highest academic honors in all three years.  He graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 2009 with a degree in History and minors in Finance and Latin.  Before attending law school, Mr. Adler worked as a strategy consultant at Bain & Company in Chicago.

Mr. Adler is admitted to practice law in the State of California as well as before the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Fourth, and Ninth Circuits, and the United States District Courts for the Central, Eastern, and Southern Districts of California.