Keker, Van Nest & Peters is pleased to welcome back Andrew Dawson, who rejoins the firm as a partner after serving as a federal prosecutor and leader in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California for nearly 10 years. While serving as a prosecutor, Andrew handled numerous matters of national significance relating to intellectual property, cyber intrusions, corporate fraud, public corruption, pharmaceutical fraud, and other white-collar matters. He most recently served as chief of the district’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Section (OCDETF), and prior to that as deputy chief of the Special Prosecutions and National Security Unit.
“Andrew’s impressive experience aligns with our firm’s longstanding commitment to excellence in white-collar representations, internal investigations and civil litigation,” Keker’s Managing Partner Laurie Carr Mims said. “We look forward to having Andrew back at our firm and are excited about all the courtroom experience and expertise he will bring to our clients.”
Andrew has an extensive background leading trial teams and supervising complex white-collar investigations, including matters of corporate fraud, cybercrime, intellectual property, public corruption, and civil rights violations.
“Keker is a one-of-a-kind firm, combining a commitment to trial work of all kinds with a focus on white-collar defense,” Dawson said. “The firm handles some of the most cutting-edge legal matters in the country, it is on the short list for high-profile executives and companies under investigation, and I am thrilled to re-join such a unique institution.”
While leading OCDETF, Andrew oversaw complex investigations relating to transnational organized crime, large-scale drug trafficking, and money laundering. He also supervised, trained, and mentored assistant U.S. attorneys. Prior to this role, Andrew served as deputy chief of the Northern District’s Special Prosecutions and National Security Unit, which handled national security investigations in addition to cyber intrusion, public corruption, civil rights, and other white-collar matters.
As a line prosecutor, Andrew also served in the Northern District’s Corporate & Securities Fraud Strike Force and handled multiple high-profile matters. Andrew was lead trial counsel in the first ever prosecution of a corporate executive related to cybersecurity failures and associated obstruction of justice. That matter concerned the coverup of a breach at a major ridesharing company, and Andrew secured a parallel corporate resolution that has been highlighted by DOJ leadership as a model for corporate criminal investigations. Prior to that, Andrew worked on a high-profile prosecution arising out of a trade secret dispute between two major Silicon Valley companies, for which the prosecution team was awarded the Director’s Award from the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys. Andrew also served as trial counsel in a white-collar racketeering case involving $400 million in pharmaceutical fraud, handled the investigation of an infamous hack of a prominent social networking site, and secured the first-ever criminal conviction under the Lobbying Disclosure Act.
As a result of his years of public service, Andrew has developed deep ties and familiarity with local and national enforcement and regulatory agencies, as well as with federal courts in Northern California and across the country. He also possesses strong knowledge of enforcement trends impacting companies in the Bay Area and beyond.
Andrew was an associate with Keker from October 2010 to June 2011 and again from October 2012 to September 2015. He served as a law clerk to Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Charles R. Breyer of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, and Judge William A. Fletcher of U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Andrew earned his J.D. from Stanford Law School, where he served as the managing editor of the Stanford Law Review. He earned a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities: Modern Thought & Literature and a minor in German Studies from Stanford University.
About Keker, Van Nest & Peters
For more than 45 years, Keker, Van Nest & Peters has litigated complex, high-stakes civil and criminal cases throughout the nation. The firm takes the cases where companies, products, and careers are riding on the result. Our clients include high-profile individuals, as well as some of the world’s most successful companies, including Genentech, Google, Instacart, Lyft, Major League Baseball, Meta, Netflix, and Qualcomm. The firm’s areas of expertise include intellectual property, professional liability, class actions, commercial litigation, antitrust, white-collar defense, and appellate.