James F. "Jim" Basile P.C.

Jim Basile is a partner in Kirkland's Bay Area office. He has spent twenty-eight years as a trial lawyer, was a founding partner of Kirkland's San Francisco office and head of Kirkland's San Francisco litigation practice for over a decade. He is the partner in charge of Kirkland's Firmwide trial advocacy program and litigation attorney training program (the Kirkland Institute for Trial Advocacy).

Jim is a seasoned litigator with a diverse practice focusing on high-profile, complex litigation and its business and public relations implications for some of the nation's most prominent corporations, including winning a landmark antitrust case on behalf of Facebook, defeating monopolization claims regarding its on-line advertising policies; winning dismissal of collusive cartel bidding claims against the private equity purchasers of Del Monte Foods; representing the world's largest law firm against tort claims arising from the dissolution of the Brobeck, Phleger firm and handling a wide variety of class actions on behalf of JPMorgan Chase, Discover Financial and 24 Hour Fitness. Additionally, Jim has handled two of the most important plaintiff defamation cases of the last thirty years: General Motors v NBC and Chiquita Brands v. Gannett.

Jim has special experience in securities matters. He acted as Morgan Stanley's National Coordinating Counsel for stock option litigation arising out of the tech bubble, and won a complete defense award in the largest retail securities claim ever brought against Morgan Stanley. He has wide experience in shareholder, merger and take-private litigation, having represented major Bay Area private equity firms such as Golden Gate Capital, Thoma Bravo and FTV Capital and many of their portfolio companies. He also has broad experience in advising boards, directors and officers on fiduciary duty issues.

Jim was named one of America's Leading Lawyers for Business by Chambers, USA, has been listed as a "Super Lawyer" in the 2013 through 2016 editions of Super Lawyers magazine and was also recognized in Legal 500 U.S. for M&A: Litigation. He has acted as lead counsel for, among others: Abbott Laboratories, American Financial Corp., B. Braun Medical, Inc., Clifford Chance Rogers & Wells, Coca Cola Enterprises, Chiquita Brands, Facebook, Fisher Investments, General Motors Corp., Golden Gate Partners, Honeywell International, Inc., Morgan Stanley, Qwest Communications, Siemens Corp., Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Thoma Bravo, 24 Hour Fitness, UBS Financial Services, United Airlines and Van Kampen. He has acted as trial counsel in both individual and class action suits involving securities, product liability, business contracts/fraud, antitrust, intellectual property/trade practices, SEC regulatory and backdating issues, defamation and labor. Jim also has represented clients in regulatory and litigation matters involving the DOJ, EPA, FTC, SEC, NHTSA, and FINRA.

Jim is admitted to the District of Columbia, California and New York Bars and is a member of the Bars of the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 3rd, 5th, 6th, 9th and D.C. Circuits as well as the Supreme Court of the United States. Jim has served in many leadership roles for the Firm, including ten years as a member of the Firm's Finance Committee. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame (1986) and the Notre Dame Law School (1989) where he was Articles Editor of the Law Review.