Tulsi E. Gaonkar

Tulsi Gaonkar has litigation and trial experience in high-stakes matters in a variety of practice areas, including intellectual property, product liability, trade secrets, and complex commercial disputes. She has represented clients before judges and juries in federal and state courts across the country, as well as in confidential arbitration proceedings.

Cases Tried or Otherwise Taken to Judgment

Gillette Company v. ShaveLogic, Inc., et al. (Business Litigation Session, Mass. Superior Court)
Trial counsel for ShaveLogic and individually-named defendants, who were accused of misappropriating trade secrets and confidential information from Gillette. ShaveLogic filed counterclaims for tortious interference, asserting that Gillette brought its claims not to protect any proprietary interests, but to interfere with ShaveLogic's business relationships. Court granted ShaveLogic's motion for summary judgment, dismissing all of Gillette's claims with prejudice, and denied Gillette's motion for summary judgment on ShaveLogic's counterclaims.

Read the WSJ article here.

Read the Law360 article here.

FortuNet Inc. v. Gaming Arts LLC (Clark County, NV)
Second chair trial counsel for Gaming Arts in breach of contract and unfair competition lawsuit related to sales representative agreement and supply contract. Six-day bench trial held in February 2018. Second phase of trial led to jury verdict against Gaming Arts. The court reversed the jury's verdict on Gaming Arts' claim for breach of the implied duty of good faith and fair dealing manifest disregard of the court's instructions. Case settled.

Spirit AeroSystems v. Gulfstream (AAA/ICDR Arbitration, New York, NY)
Represented Spirit AeroSystems against Gulfstream. Both parties alleged hundreds of millions of dollars of breach of contract damages. After a three-week arbitration hearing that included opening statements and testimony from dozens of witnesses, the case settled on favorable terms before the panel issued a ruling.

Other Representative Cases

Ashton Woods L.L.C. v. USG Corp., et al. (N.D. Cal.)
Defending the leading U.S. drywall manufacturer against Sherman Act and state-law price fixing claims brought by twelve of the nation's largest homebuilders. Secured summary judgment on liability in favor of clients United States Gypsum Company and USG Corp. This decision came after the court denied summary judgment to multiple co-Defendants. The case against a distributor subsidiary, L&W Supply, settled shortly before trial.

Sprint v. Cequel et al. (D. Del. 2020-present) 
Trial counsel for defendant Cequel (Altice) in patent lawsuit brought by Sprint alleging that Cequel’s voice-over-IP networks infringe a number of Sprint’s patents. Trial scheduled for 2021.

Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Cases
Lead national counsel for DuPont on claims that its 2015 spin-off of The Chemours Company was a fraudulent transfer. Handling those claims in the aqueous film-forming foam multidistrict litigation in the District of South Carolina as well as cases in California, Louisiana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Vermont.

ViiV Healthcare Co. et al. v. Gilead Sciences (D. Del.)
Counsel for Gilead in patent litigation relating to Gilead’s Biktarvy® (bictegravir) product. Case pending.

ET Plus Litigation
National counsel for defendants, Trinity Industries and Trinity Highway Products, in litigation alleging personal injuries from Trinity's ET Plus guardrail end terminal system.

Professional Activities and Community Service

Coalition of Women’s Initiatives in Law – Board Member 

LCLD Success in Law School Mentoring Program, Mentor 

Evanston Scholars, Mentor