Nathaniel H. Brown

Nate Brown specializes in high-stakes civil litigation. He has represented major technology companies, law firms, startups, and individuals in complex commercial cases involving intellectual property, partnership and governance disputes, breach of contract claims, and fraud and malpractice allegations. He has experience drafting and arguing key motions, taking and defending depositions, and conducting direct and cross examinations of fact and expert witnesses at trial.

Nate has devoted a significant amount of his time and energy to pro bono work. He was part of a team that represented hundreds of habeas petitioners against the warden of San Quentin and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation after a Covid-19 outbreak infected 75% of the prison’s population and killed 28 people. After a three-week evidentiary hearing, the court found that the defendants “caused the worst epidemiological disaster in California correctional history” and violated petitioners’ constitutional rights. Nate also successfully defended a local majority-supported voter initiative from an attack by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association involving a novel issue of California constitutional law.

Prior to joining Keker, Van Nest & Peters, Nate served as a law clerk to the Honorable A. Wallace Tashima of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He earned his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, and his B.A. from Pomona College where he was student body president. During law school, he spent multiple semesters doing direct services legal work as a clinical student advocate at the East Bay Community Law Center. Before law school, he worked for U.S. Senator Brian Schatz and as the policy and research director for a congressional campaign in Colorado.