Rakesh Kilaru
Partner
Rakesh has substantial experience litigating high-stakes matters in trial and appellate courts throughout the country.
Over the past several years, Rakesh has successfully resolved some of the biggest antitrust cases in history. Those include obtaining a full judgment for the NFL in post-trial proceedings in a $21 billion challenge to the NFL’s media model, defeating the FTC’s challenge to Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and negotiating a groundbreaking and innovative settlement to end decades of litigation over the NCAA’s compensation rules.
Beyond antitrust, Rakesh has helped clients achieve successful outcomes in a wide array of industries and subject matter areas, including defamation, financial services, products liability, and trade secrets. He has served as lead or co-lead counsel in over a dozen class actions or MDLs.
Rakesh’s record of success is nationally recognized. He won Benchmark Litigation’s “Antitrust Litigator of the Year” award in 2026, is included among their elite “Top 100 Trial Lawyers,” has repeatedly been selected as a “Litigation Star,” and has received two national “Impact Case Awards” recognizing his work for Microsoft and the NCAA. He is ranked by Chambers and Partners and recommended by Legal 500 in both sports and antitrust law. He has also been distinguished as both a National Law Journal “Winning Litigator” and “Rising Star,” a Law360 “MVP” for Sports & Betting, and one of Bloomberg Law’s “40 Under 40.” He also regularly appears on Lawdragon’s top lawyers lists, including “500 Leading Lawyers in America,” “500 Leading Litigators in America,” and “500 Leading Global Entertainment, Sports & Media Lawyers.”
Before joining the firm, Rakesh was a Special Assistant to the President and Associate Counsel in the Office of White House Counsel, where he provided legal advice and strategic counseling to the Obama Administration on its domestic policy agenda. He also helped to develop and implement the government’s litigation strategy in cases arising under the Affordable Care Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Rakesh began his career by clerking for Justice Elena Kagan on the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Education
- Law: Stanford Law School, J.D.; Member, Stanford Supreme Court Litigation Clinic; Notes Editor, Stanford Law Review; Best Brief and Best Overall Team, 2010 Kirkwood Moot Court Competition; Best Oral Advocate, 2010 National Trial Competition (awarded by the American College of Trial Lawyers)
- Undergraduate: Columbia University, B.A., summa cum laude; Phi Beta Kappa
Clerkship
- Justice Elena Kagan, Supreme Court of the United States (October Term 2011)
- Judge Harvie Wilkinson III, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (2010–2011)
Notable Matters
- Co-Lead trial counsel and lead appellate counsel for Microsoft in the FTC’s challenge to Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard — the second-largest merger trial in American history and the biggest involving a technology company. Defeated the FTC’s request for a preliminary injunction to stop the transaction after a five-day trial that began less than two weeks after the FTC filed its federal court claim. At trial, Rakesh examined four witnesses, including Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, as well as several experts. Rakesh also directed Microsoft’s legal strategy, including successfully opposing post-trial motions that allowed the merger to close, leading the briefing and arguing in opposition to the FTC’s appeal, and winning a unanimous affirmance in the Ninth Circuit, after which the FTC dropped its case entirely.
- Co-Lead trial counsel for the NFL and its 32 member clubs in a class action brought by residential and commercial subscribers of NFL Sunday Ticket in the Central District of California. Plaintiffs sought over $21 billion in damages post-trebling as well as injunctive relief that would undermine the NFL’s entire broadcast model. Rakesh examined several key witnesses at trial, including the NFL’s chief media and business officer and its expert econometrician. Rakesh also directed the NFL’s legal strategy, including the post-trial briefing that resulted in a complete victory for the NFL.
- Lead counsel for the NCAA in Chalmers v. NCAA, a putative class action filed in the Southern District of New York on behalf of a sprawling group of student-athletes spanning over 40 years. Obtained dismissal of all claims with prejudice without any discovery being taken, and then a unanimous Second Circuit affirmance one week after the appellate argument. Rakesh led briefing strategy on the motion to dismiss and the appeal and presented oral argument in both the district court and the Second Circuit. The decision in Chalmers resulted in dismissals of multiple follow-on actions in other courts.
- Lead counsel for NCAA in putative class action lawsuits against the NCAA and five member Conferences challenging the NCAA’s rules regarding student-athletes’ use of their names, images, and likenesses (“NIL”). Negotiated a groundbreaking and innovative settlement to decades of litigation over the NCAA’s compensation rules, and then served as lead defense counsel at the successful settlement approval hearing.
- Lead counsel for Valve Corporation in multiple class action antitrust lawsuits in the Western District of Washington related to the Steam gaming platform.
- Lead counsel for the Executive Council of the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake in Hengle v. Asner, a consumer class action filed in the Eastern District of Virginia in April 2019. Initial motions practice resulted in Plaintiffs dropping all claims for money damages (including treble damages claims under RICO) against the Tribe’s economic development arms. Rakesh then led several years of further motions practice on Plaintiffs’ injunctive claims, including an appeal and oral argument by Rakesh in the Fourth Circuit, that resulted in the preclusion of Plaintiffs’ remaining RICO claim. The parties then reached a nationwide class action settlement in which the Tribe paid $0 into the settlement fund and $0 in attorneys’ fees.
- Counsel in the firm’s successful representation of federal district Judge Emmet Sullivan in mandamus proceedings before the D.C. Circuit arising out of the criminal case against former White House National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. After the Department of Justice sought to dismiss Flynn's guilty plea and conviction, Wilkinson Stekloff was hired to defend Judge Sullivan against an effort to prematurely terminate the case. The D.C. Circuit ultimately ruled in a bipartisan, 9-2 decision that the case should be reinstated and returned to Judge Sullivan.
- Trial counsel in Todd McNair v. NCAA. Obtained a defense jury verdict in state court in Los Angeles. McNair, a former University of Southern California assistant football coach, was implicated by the NCAA in the Reggie Bush benefits scandal. He sued the NCAA for defamation. Wilkinson Stekloff took over the representation after the NCAA had lost three pre-trial appeals, including on the issue of McNair’s ability to show falsity and malice. At trial, Rakesh examined a key defense witness and cross-examined the Plaintiff’s sole damages expert. The jury ultimately rejected McNair’s claims. The trial was covered extensively in the media, including ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and the LA Times. After the jury verdict, trial Judge Frederick Shaller called the advocacy in the case “the best I’ve seen since I’ve been a judge.”
- Directed legal strategy for Bayer Corporation in Cooney v. Janssen, tried in August 2018 before the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas in the national products liability litigation challenging the warnings that accompany Bayer Corporation’s market-leading blood thinner, Xarelto. Rakesh obtained summary judgment on the plaintiff’s design defect claim prior to trial—the first summary judgment win for Defendants in the Xarelto litigation. Rakesh also argued dozens of evidentiary and legal motions throughout the trial on the remaining claim, as well as the jury charge, and helped obtain a complete defense verdict on the remaining failure to warn count after less than two hours of jury deliberation.
- Lead counsel for the economic development arms of the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Golden Valley Lending, et al. The Tribe retained Wilkinson Stekloff shortly before a complaint was filed, and Rakesh developed a comprehensive legal strategy involving the filing of a successful motion to transfer the case out of the Bureau’s chosen forum, a successful motion to stay discovery, and then a motion to dismiss the lawsuit supported by five amicus briefs. Rather than respond to the motion to dismiss, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau voluntarily dismissed the action — the only time it has taken that step in a case brought against a sovereign Indian Nation.
- Trial counsel for the NCAA in lawsuits brought by current and former student-athletes challenging, under the Sherman Act, NCAA rules limiting the level of athletics-based financial aid and benefits that student-athletes may receive. The Court’s opinion reaffirmed the procompetitive value of the NCAA’s rules limiting pay for student-athletes while enjoining certain limitations on benefits that student-athletes may receive.
- Trial counsel for Forest Laboratories in In re Namenda Direct Purchaser Antitrust Litigation, a certified antitrust class action in the Southern District of New York involving a groundbreaking treatment for dementia in Alzheimer's patients. Plaintiffs claimed approximately $21 billion in trebled damages; the case settled the night before trial for less than 5% of that amount.
- Trial counsel for Monsanto in Hardeman v. Monsanto, the first federal-court trial over allegations that Roundup causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Rakesh helped lead the pretrial briefing strategy in front of Judge Vince Chhabria, including on a successful motion to “reverse bifurcate” the trial with a first phase focused on causation, and on Daubert motions relating to two experts that Plaintiffs withdrew before trial. At trial, Rakesh examined one of two case-specific medical experts and argued dozens of evidentiary motions and the jury charges for both phases of trial.
- Helped lead summary judgment briefing for Georgia-Pacific in Kleen Products LLC et al. v. Packaging Corporation of America et al., a multi-billion-dollar class action in Chicago federal court alleging Sherman Act violations by the largest manufacturers in the containerboard and corrugated products industries. The court granted summary judgment for Georgia-Pacific one day after it preliminarily approved a settlement in which the company’s co- defendants agreed to pay over $350 million.
- Represented Ford Motor Company from trial through appeal in Westgate Ford Truck Sales v. Ford Motor Company, helping to obtain and then defend a complete defense verdict in a class action lawsuit seeking the largest damages award in Ohio history.
- Represented Johnson and Johnson in Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Arkansas, helping to obtain reversal of a $1.2 billion jury verdict involving Risperdal.
Publications
- Comment, The New Rule 12(b)(6): Twombly, Iqbal, and the Paradox of Pleading, 62 Stanford Law Review 905 (2010).
Other Activities
Rakesh is an elected member of The American Law Institute (ALI), and is active in the legal community. He sits on the Executive Committee of the Board of the Legal Aid Society for the District of Columbia and on the Board of the Second Look Project and is an editor of the Green Bag. He also serves on the Nominations Committee of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association-DC, and previously served as a Director of APABA-DC’s Education Fund.