Biography
KENNETH R. O’ROURKE
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich Rosati, Partner
Washington, DC; San Francisco, California
EXPERIENCE
Kenneth (Ken) O’Rourke is a partner in the Antitrust Department at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where his practice focuses on litigating complex cases and high-stakes U.S. and international disputes, as well as defending clients in government investigations.
For more than three decades, Ken has represented both established and emerging companies in multi-forum civil litigation, class actions and international price-fixing cartel follow-on actions, monopolization and attempted monopolization cases, pending mergers contested by government enforcers and private litigants, IP disputes involving the refusal to license standard essential patents (SEPs) on reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) terms, and pharmaceutical antitrust lawsuits alleging delayed market entry of generic drugs due to reverse payment patent settlements. He represents both plaintiffs and defendants.
CREDENTIALS
Ken is admitted to practice in California and the District of Columbia, as well as a solicitor of the Senior Courts of England & Wales with a current practising certificate, and formerly a solicitor of the Republic of Ireland.
Ken is consistently recognized by leading industry publications. Chambers USA: California Antitrust 2019 reports that he is “a spectacular lawyer” who “takes on large-scale civil and criminal antitrust litigation.” Global Competition Review’s 2016 edition of Who’s Who Legal - Competition called Ken “one of California's foremost litigators” and praised him for both his competition and IP experience. From 2019 through 2022, the publication has continually honored Ken as being among the world’s “Competition Thought Leaders,” noting that peers extol him as “a really excellent antitrust litigator.”
Prior to joining Wilson Sonsini, Ken was a senior antitrust and business litigation partner with another top law firm, where he practiced law for nearly 35 years in California and more recently Washington, D.C. He also served for nearly 18 months as the interim chief legal officer of Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC), one of the country's largest health insurers and operator of the BlueCross BlueShield health plans in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.
LEADERSHIP
Chair / Co-Chair, The Antitrust Litigation Forum, 2010-2019
Chair, California State Bar Antitrust & Unfair Competition Law Section Executive Committee, 2013-14.
Vice Chair, 2012-13
Vice Chair, ABA Antitrust Section’s Global Private Litigation Committee, 2021-present
ABA Antitrust Section's International Cartel Task Force, 2013-2018
Additional ABA Antitrust Section Leadership Positions, 2017-present