Wilkinson Stekloff Partner Rakesh Kilaru has been recognized in the second annual edition of Bloomberg Law’s “Unrivaled” Litigators as one of the nation’s top trial lawyers setting the standard for high-stakes litigation. The recipients of this prestigious award were determined through a rigorous review by Bloomberg editors and litigation analysts, identifying individuals with a demonstrated history of litigation excellence and multiple major wins or significant positive settlements in recent years.
As lead counsel for the NCAA in Chalmers v. NCAA, et al., Rakesh secured a landmark defense victory, persuading a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to dismiss with prejudice antitrust claims brought by former Division I student-athletes. In addition to his role as lead counsel to the NCAA, Rakesh spearheaded a coordinated defense including the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, Pac-12, and the SEC, guiding briefing on the motion to dismiss and handling oral argument. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit subsequently upheld the dismissal in December 2025, just a week after Rakesh delivered oral argument before the panel. The result served as precedent for the dismissal of four similar cases, collectively avoiding significant damages exposure for the NCAA.
The Chalmers complaint was filed in the wake of the NCAA’s highly-publicized name, image, and likeness (“NIL”) settlement, which allowed colleges and universities to directly compensate students for their athletic participation for the first time, reshaping the face of collegiate athletics. Rakesh explained to Bloomberg that, “as a result, plaintiffs had what appeared to be a straightforward argument—‘student-athletes can now receive compensation for their NIL, so it’s unfair we weren’t able to back when we competed.’”
Describing his strategy to Bloomberg, Rakesh explained: “We knew that we had a strong statute-of-limitations argument, but we needed to figure out how to bring that very technical argument to life. We decided to focus on a simple and indisputable truth—the proposed class was so broad as to include athletes who competed in the 1960s, and there was no excuse for their failure to sue earlier. . . . It was gratifying when one of the first questions Judge Paul Engelmayer asked at argument is whether the class included ‘Lew Alcindor, even before he became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’—it showed our message had gotten through.”
Rakesh also credited the seamless coordination among defense counsel representing seven defendants: “We’ve spent years working alongside the excellent counsel for the [athletic conferences]. We continued that excellent collaboration here, and the victory was very much a joint effort.”
Rakesh’s recognition reflects his broader philosophy as a litigator. “Focus on what the judge or jury actually need to hear,” he told Bloomberg. “In every case, only a few arguments really matter, and you have to have the courage to commit to them. If you have too many points, you might as well have no point.”
This recognition adds to the firm’s growing list of accolades from Bloomberg Law. Last year, Founding Partner Beth Wilkinson was spotlighted in the inaugural edition of “Unrivaled” for her defense of the NFL against $21 billion exposure in class-action Sherman Act claims and the successful defense of Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard against an FTC challenge. Rakesh served as co-lead counsel on both of those matters as well.