Brian Brooks
Partner
Brian Brooks is Head of O'Melveny's Washington, DC office and a member of the Class Actions, Mass Torts, and Aggregated Litigation Practice. His practice focuses on complex financial services litigation and regulatory matters, including class actions and state and federal enforcement actions. Brian represents banks, investment firms, insurance companies, and diversified financial services companies. Brian also serves as the Firm's Talent Development Partner, responsible for associate and counsel recruiting, development, and compensation firmwide.
Illustrative Professional Experience
- Spearheading the defense of a series of privacy class actions brought against one of the "Big 3" national credit bureaus
- Defending the nation's leading life settlement provider in enforcement actions brought by the New York Attorney General and Florida Office of Insurance Regulation
- Representing one of the nation's largest servicer of subprime mortgages in a series of mortgage servicing class actions
- Representing a top-10 commercial bank in a series of mortgage-banking class actions
- Defending class actions arising out of the termination of a major co-branded credit card program
- Representing the American Bankers Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other amici in the precedent-setting case Washington Mutual Bank v. Superior Court, which established the standards for nationwide banking class actions in California
Brian has represented financial services firms and other clients before state and federal courts around the nation, as well as before regulatory agencies including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Trade Commission, and others. He is a faculty member of the Practising Law Institute's Consumer Financial Services Litigation Institute and a frequent speaker at financial services litigation events sponsored by the Mortgage Bankers Association and the American Conference Institute, among others. He has been invited to address such leading organizations as the American Enterprise Institute, the American Health Lawyers Association, the Republican Attorneys General Association, the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, the National Council of State Housing Agencies, and others. He has been quoted in such publications as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the National Law Journal, U.S. Banker, and Marketwatch, and his writings have appeared in American Banker, On Wall Street, and a number of law journals.
Professional Activities
Law Clerk, Honorable Danny J. Boggs, U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Member, The American Law Institute
Member, American Bar Association Consumer Financial Services Committee
Author, "The Murky Politics of Removal Jurisdiction," 5 Engage 90 (2004); "'Claims Shaving': An Emerging Threat to Rights of Class Action Plaintiffs,"
Washington Legal Foundation Legal Backgrounder, (April 25, 2003); "Restoring the Rule of Law in Class Actions," 4 Engage 125, (2003); "Fallout From Another New California Law,"
American Banker, (August 29, 2003); "Publishing Unpublished Opinions," 5 Green Bag 2d 255, (2002).
Co-Author, "More Credit, Less Poverty,"
National Law Journal (August 20, 2007) (with Schan Duff); "
Grable's Quiet Revolution: The Revival of Substantial Federal Question Jurisdiction," 6 Engage 116 (2005) (with Sarah Goldfrank); "Federalism in Multidistrict Litigation: Developments Under the All Writs Act," 7 Comm. & Bus. Litig. 1 (2005); "Class-Action Threat Reduced for Financial Firms in California,"
American Banker, (February 23, 2001) (with Bill Satchell); "Unpublished Opinions & The Nature of Precedent," 4 Green Bag 2d 17, (2000) (with Danny J. Boggs)
Chair, Federalist Society Class Action Subcommittee