Cody Gray represents public and private companies, non-profits, and individuals in complex commercial litigation and white-collar criminal matters. He is experienced with every phase of the litigation process and adept at developing creative factual and legal strategies to help his clients achieve their goals as efficiently as possible.
Mr. Gray has litigated a wide variety of high-stakes civil disputes in state and federal courts and in arbitration. His clients include leading businesses in the technology, healthcare, and professional services industries. Mr. Gray’s recent experience includes representing a software provider in a breach of contract and privacy-related matter; a chip design company in copyright and patent infringement litigation; and a marketing platform in a putative class action involving right of publicity and unfair competition law claims.
In his criminal practice, Mr. Gray represents corporations and individuals in internal and government investigations and trials. His expertise spans every phase of the criminal process, from investigation, indictment, bail, and discovery, to trial, sentencing, and appeal. Mr. Gray’s criminal matters have involved an array of substantive offenses, including conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, securities fraud, honest services fraud, bank fraud, tax fraud, tax evasion, insider trading, bribery, and money laundering. Mr. Gray also regularly represents indigent clients charged with drug and other alleged offenses in matters referred to the firm by the Northern District of California’s Criminal Justice Act panel. His recent experience includes defending a businessman charged with conspiracy, making false statements, and bank fraud; a real estate developer charged with bribing a politician; a corporation and its current and former employees in a prosecution involving claims of honest services fraud and money laundering; and a senior executive in a federal insider trading investigation.
Mr. Gray maintains an active pro bono practice centered on civil rights and voting-related matters. He recently represented an inmate alleging an Eighth Amendment claim against a yard gunner at San Quentin State Prison. Mr. Gray also assisted a successful effort to evacuate a family of six from Kabul, Afghanistan, and has drafted several effective amicus briefs in voting rights cases.
Prior to joining Keker, Van Nest & Peters, Mr. Gray served as a law clerk to Judge Richard Seeborg of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, and Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Mr. Gray earned his J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School, his Ph.D. and M.A. in Politics from Princeton University, and his B.A. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. During law school, he interned at the U.S. Department of Justice in the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section. Prior to law school, Mr. Gray was an aide to U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein on the Senate Judiciary Committee and spent a summer working on the Native American Affairs Policy Team at the White House Domestic Policy Council.
United States v. Executive
During a nine-week trial, we defended the former chief financial officer of a British software company against federal criminal charges accusing our client of alleged accounting fraud, relating to a $11 billion acquisition by a U.S. company.
Netflix v. Kail
We represented Netflix and 12 current and former employees in a federal prosecution against Michael Kail, a former Netflix employee. In coordination with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and FBI, we prepared the Netflix witnesses to testify during a two and a half-week trial in the Northern District of California. Mr. Kail was convicted of wire fraud, mail fraud, and money laundering.
January 21, 2022
This 2-day program, 1/24/22 and 1/25/22, qualifies for 6 hours of general CLE credit, 1 hour of ethics credit, and 1 hour of elimination of bias credit.
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September 23, 2019
This October, white collar lawyers should set their eyes on Kelly v. United States, the one white collar criminal matter the Supreme Court has currently agreed to hear.[1] The case stems from New Jersey’s Bridgegate affair, has headline-grabbing potential, and affords another opportunity for the court to consider the scope of the federal fraud statutes, a la McNally and Skilling. Read more
- Supreme Court Examines Civil Asset Forfeiture and Due Process in Culley, Daily Journal, 2023, co-authored with Brook Dooley.
- Questions Awaiting Justices in ‘Repugnant’ Verdicts Hearing, Law360, 2023, co-authored with Brook Dooley.
- October Term 2023 Supreme Court Preview: White Collar Criminal Defense, The Recorder, 2023, co-authored with Brook Dooley.
- Examining 4 Areas Where DOJ Faced Recent Setbacks, Law360, 2023, co-authored with Brook Dooley, Eric MacMichael, and Nicholas Goldberg.
- Panelist and moderator, “Hot Topics and Recent Developments in the World of Insider Trading,” Bar Association of San Francisco, 2022.
- Presenter, “Tips for Avoiding Ethical Dilemmas as In-House Counsel,” Association of Corporate Counsel, San Francisco Bay Area, 2022
- Justices May Cabin Theory of Fraud in ‘Buffalo Billion’ Case, Law360, 2022, co-authored with Brook Dooley.
- The Supreme Court’s 2022 White-Collar Docket, Thomson Reuters Westlaw / Westlaw Today, 2022, co-authored with Brook Dooley.
- Takeaways from White Collar Criminal Enforcement in 2021, Law360, 2022, co-authored with Brook Dooley, Eric MacMichael, and Nicholas Goldberg.
- 2020 White Collar Prosecution and Enforcement Trends, Law360, 2020, co-authored with Brook Dooley, Eric MacMichael, and Nicholas Goldberg.
- White Collar Cases and Trends to Watch at High Court, Law360, 2019, co-authored with Brook Dooley.
- From Textbook Pluralism to Modern Hyper Pluralism: Interest Groups and Supreme Court Nominations, 1930-2017, 8 J. Law & Courts 301 (2020) (with co-authors).
- “Nothing to See Here”? Enforcing Brady in “Outsourced” Government Investigations, NACDL’s West Coast White Collar Conference, 2019, co-authored with Jan Nielsen Little and Nic Marais.
- Parties by Design: Pluralist Party Reform in a Polarized Era, 93 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 621 (2018) (with Bruce E. Cain) (Symposium on the Presidential Nomination Process).
- A New Proposal to Address Local Voting Discrimination, 50 U. Rich. L. Rev. 611 (2016).
- Savior Through Severance: A Litigation-Based Response to Shelby County v. Holder, 50 Harv. C.R.–C.L. L. Rev. 49 (2015).