Eric H. Gibbs

Gibbs Law Group has taken on some of the most notable cases of the past few years, and its founding partner has had an instrumental role in many of them.

Gibbs was one of the lead lawyers in the Anthem data breach case that generated the largest class settlement of its kind in history. In re Anthem Inc. Data breach Litigation, 15-MD02617 (N.D. Cal., filed June 12, 2015). He also prosecuted another high profile data breach case involving consumer credit reporting agency Equifax Inc.

"Every one of these data breach cases are their own learning curve, since it's a relatively new area of litigation examining differing internal company makeups and business practices," Gibbs said. "The interesting thing that distinguishes data breach and privacy cases from other class cases is the need to affect real, meaningful changes to internal business models."

The Equifax case, which Gibbs distinguished as "unusual" since it is even larger in scope than the Anthem case, involved hackers gaining access to the personal financial information of more than 145 million Americans in late 2017. In re Equifax, Inc. Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, 1:17-md-02800 (N.D. Ga. filed Dec. 6, 2017 )

Gibbs was nominated for a leadership position in the case from a pool of more than 50 attorneys, largely thanks to his expertise in this developing area of law.

"Prosecuting these class action cases, you need to spend a lot of time ensuring that the main plaintiffs, representative of the class, are the best people to do that," Gibbs observed. "Also, because these are relatively new types of cases, you need to discipline yourself not to plead every claim - you need to focus on the claims that can take you the farthest."

But Gibbs and his firm are involved in high-profile cases outside of data security as well. He is active in litigation stemming from the deadly camp wildfire of last year, bringing together a class of victims directly affected by the disaster, who are suing PG&E Corp. for failing to maintain and manage its power transmission lines in the affected area. Quammen v. PG&E Corp., CGC-18-571281 (S. F. Super. Ct. filed Nov. 1, 2018)

"It's a different experience when talking to a family that lost everything and is in dire straits," he said. "It's important to do it at the highest of ethical standards."

Gibbs does not hesitate to express his thoughts on what makes a good plaintiff attorney.

"The most effective litigators are those who figure out how to advocate persuasively without forgetting who they are as a person - and that's true for lawyering in general," he said. "It's easy to point to numbers and focus on eye-popping settlements, but some of our best work isn't in the 9-figure settlement range. It's more about every detail - every piece of relief there is and responding to a grievance that plaintiffs brought, and putting in the time and effort to figure out what the class cares about, so that at the end they say, 'That's great, that really helps me.'"

--Dan Heching