Dean J. Kitchens is a partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Los Angeles office and is a member of the firm’s Litigation and Securities Litigation Practice Groups. He is also a member of the firm’s Executive Committee and five-member Management Committee and serves as the firm’s General Counsel. Mr. Kitchens is a past member of the Judicial Appointments Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.

Mr. Kitchens has been named a Litigation Star in California for 2010 through 2014 by Institutional Investor’s Benchmark Litigation Guide, based on interviews with private practice lawyers and in-house counsel. He also has been recognized as a Leading Lawyer in Securities Litigation both nationally and in California in the 2007 through 2014 editions of Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business. Mr. Kitchens has been selected as a “Best Lawyer” in Commercial Litigation, Insurance Law, and Litigation: Securities by The Best Lawyers in America® 2012 and 2014. He is the original author of the Chapter “Trial of a Securities Class Action” for the leading treatise on securities litigation, Practicing Law Institute’s Securities Litigation: A Practitioner’s Guide, first published in 2006.

Mr. Kitchens’ practice focuses on complex business and commercial litigation with an emphasis on securities litigation and auditor liability matters. He represents issuers, underwriters, accounting firms and individuals in securities and business related litigation in state and federal courts throughout the country. His experience includes extensive involvement in securities class actions, shareholder derivative actions and insurer subrogation claims involving alleged violations of securities laws. He also regularly represents clients in investigations conducted by the SEC, Department of Justice and other governmental agencies and entities.
Mr. Kitchens graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1974 and received his law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles Law School in 1978. He served as Article Editor of the UCLA Law Review and was elected a member of the Order of the Coif. He is admitted to practice before the California Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and all of the U.S. District Courts in California.