William Grauer
William E. Grauer (“Bill Grauer”) is a corporate litigation attorney at the law firm of Cooley Godward Kronish LLP specializing in securities litigation (including cases involving the PSLRA), health care litigation, and internal corporate investigations. He is one of the few lawyers in San Diego who has successfully argued in the United States Supreme Court, obtaining a unanimous victory. Grauer has also argued successfully in the California Supreme Court and multiple times in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Grauer has been involved in the improvement of attorney discipline for many years. For 22 years, from 1988 to 2010, Grauer served as the Chair of the Standing Committee on Discipline for the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. Appointed by Order of the judges of the Court, he was responsible for supervising attorney discipline cases against attorneys in federal court. He is also a former Chair of the Ethics Committee of the San Diego County Bar Association. Grauer served as Co-Chair of Cooley’s National Securities Litigation Practice and was recently selected by the Los Angeles Daily Journal as one of the top 100 lawyers in the state of California. Grauer is an experienced trial and appellate lawyer and was previously given the Outstanding Trial Lawyer Award by the Trial Lawyers Association in San Diego.
Grauer served as the lead counsel for PacifiCare in the In Re Managed Care Litigation, MDL 1440 (S.D. Fla), one of the largest certified class actions in US history. He also served on the Steering Committee leading the IPO Allocation litigations, the largest coordinated securities litigation in US history.
From 2005 to 2009, Grauer was named to the Best Lawyers in America in the categories of Commercial Litigation, Derivatives Law and Securities Law. From 2007 to 2010, he has been named to the Southern California Super Lawyers - San Diego in the categories of (1) Top 50 Lawyers, and (2) Business Litigation. From 2006 to 2009, Grauer was named by his peers as one of the "Top San Diego County Attorneys" in the category of Corporate Litigation, as published by the San Diego Daily Transcript. He was also named in 2008-09 by Lawdragon as one of "The Nation's Top Securities Litigators.
Education and early career
Grauer attended Cornell University and graduated in 1971 with Honors in Government, magna cum laude, and was awarded a degree With Distinction. In 1974, he earned his J.D. from Cornell Law School, where he also served as the Articles Editor of the Law Review and was elected to Order of the Coif.
In 1980 Grauer was appointed by the Attorney General of the United States to serve as an Assistant United States Attorney handling Special Fraud Prosecutions in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of California. As an Assistant United States Attorney, Grauer was given special achievement awards by the Attorney General of the United States, the United States Postal Inspection Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Secret Service.
Bar Association Activities
Grauer is a member of the American Bar Association (ABA) House of Delegates for the 2008-2010 term and a Lawyer Representative, 9th Circuit Judicial Conference for the 2007-2010 term. Since 2005 he has served as Co-Chair of the IPO Litigation Subcommittee of the ABA section of Litigation. He has written extensively in the area of securities litigation.
References
- Best Lawyers in America, 2009, 1
- Best Lawyers in America, 2008, 2
- Best Lawyers in America, 2007, 3
- Southern California Super Lawyers, 2010, 4
- Law & Politics Magazine, 2007 Super Lawyers, 5
- Law & Politics Magazine, 2008 Super Lawyers, 6
- Law & Politics Magazine, 2009 Super Lawyers, 7
- San Diego Daily Transcript, Top Attorneys, 2005: 8
- San Diego Daily Transcript, Top Attorneys 2006
- San Diego Daily Transcript, Top Attorneys 2007 9
- San Diego Daily Transcript, Top Attorneys 2009
- "The Hollistic Approach to Scienter Under Tellabs," Securities Litigation Journal, American Bar Association, Section of Litigation, Volume 19, Number 2, Winter 2009, William E. Grauer, Mary Kathryn Kelley and Peter M. Adams
- "Discounting Anonymity: The Future of Confidential Witnesses Post-Tellabs in Federal Securities Fraud Class Actions," Securities Litigation Journal, American Bar Association, Section of Litigation, Volume 18, Number 3, Spring 2008, William E. Grauer and Ryan E. Blair
- "Broker-Dealer Litigation under the Reliance Requirement of Rule 10b-5," Securities Litigation Journal, American Bar Association, Section of Litigation, Fall 2007, William E. Grauer and Mary Kathryn Kelley
- "Heady Days," The Recorder, March 17, 2003, Brenda Sandburg
- "Securities Fraud Pleading Standards, and New Requirements for Investigating Employees," California Lawyer, December 1999, William E. Grauer, William S. Freeman and James V. Fazio III