Richard GoraFounder & Member

RichHeadshots-8
areas of practice
  • securities, capital raises and private placements
  • corporate & M&A transactions
  • blockchain
  • intellectual property
  • litigation
affiliations
  • American Bar Association
  • Connecticut Bar Association, Past Committee Chair
  • Fairfield County Bar Association (non-profit), Past Director and Committee Chair
  • A Better Life Foundation (non-profit), Director
  • SoundAffects (non-profit), Past Director
admissions only in
  • United States Supreme Court
  • Second Circuit Court of Appeals
  • Connecticut
  • District of Connecticut
  • Northern District of New York
  • Eastern District of New York
  • Southern District of New York
  • New Jersey
  • District of New Jersey
  • District of Colorado
prior experience
  • Finn Dixon & Herling LLP

With over 13 years of experience in business, corporate, securities, management, litigation, employment and intellectual property, Rich has advised clients on deals and litigation issues all over the world and throughout the United States.

Rich has represented clients, such as:

  • Princess Märtha Louise of Norway
  • Andrew C. Rockefeller
  • Binance
  • Founder Institute
  • A former managing director of the Qatar Investment Authority
  • A former CEO of Cadence Design Systems
  • A former CEO of Sun Microsystems
  • Members of the Royal Family of Qatar
  • Crompton Greaves
  • CG Power and Industrial Solutions Limited
  • WEG Transformers USA
  • Pro Music Rights
  • Miki Agrawal, Founder of Thinx and Tushy
  • A producer of the Hollywood blockbuster film, Ali
  • A producer for the band, MGMT
  • An actress on Chicago PD, This Is Us, One Tree Hill, Incredibles 2
  • A former guitarist in Prince’s band, The Revolution

Rich also has a growing startup practice where he’s advised hundreds of startups and early stage companies.

Gora LLC comes up with results that are actually implementable.

Before founding Gora LLC in late 2014, Rich Gora was an attorney for over 8 years at Finn Dixon & Herling LLP.  He has advised high-profile clients, including a founder of Google Energy, a member of the Rockefeller family, a Spotify executive, a Bitcoin pioneer, and the former CFO of Lehman Brothers. He advises clients all across the world, including the UAE, UK, Australia, Germany, Norway, Poland, Hong Kong and Vietnam.

M&A / Securities / Investment Management

We advise broker-dealers, investment advisers, hedge funds (including hedge funds with cryptocurrency strategies having aggregate AUMs in the billions), funds of funds, offshore funds and other investment vehicles on all aspects of fund structuring and formation. We’ve drafted PPMs for, among others, an $85 million equity investment. We’ve advised on millions of dollars of M&A, investment and securities offering activity. We advise various hedge funds with billions of AUM, private equity, venture capital and other market participants.

Recent transactional representations include:

  • Confidential investment in Uber’s Series E valued at $40 billion
  • $100 million convertible debt financing
  • $25 million redemption of founder stock
  • $3.5 million equity raise for Silicon Valley company
  • $4.5 million equity raise for Silicon Valley company
  • $5.2 million equity raise for Silicon Valley company
  • $15 million equity raise for technology company
  • $85 million equity offering
  • $20 million convertible debt financing
  • $1 million redemption
  • $3 million equity sale
  • $10 million equity offering
  • $1.5 million debt offering

Business and Corporate

Rich counsels companies – ranging from startups to public companies – on general business matters, including:

  • Employment and compensation agreements
  • Master Services Agreements (MSAs) and Statements of Work (SOW)
  • Licensing, manufacturing and other intellectual property management agreements
  • Independent Contractor and Servicer agreements
  • Terms of Service/Use, Privacy Policies and End-User Licensing Agreements (EULAs)
  • Confidentiality and Proprietary Invention Agreements
  • Trademark and Copyright registration and assignments
  • General formation issues and structuring

 

Employment

We’ve advised a Founder of Google Energy on employment and investment issues, and have counseled employers and employees on private employment matters, including issues arising under the False Claims Act and relating to federal whistleblower programs with the SEC and the FDA. We regularly counsel employers and employees on equity compensation, termination, board and related work issues.

Government Investigations

We counsel clients on DOJ, SEC, FBI, CFTC, NFA and state regulatory investigations. We are presently advising the Chief Executive Officer and a Public Company in an investigation by a state securities regulator and the SEC, and have represented various funds and individuals in enforcement actions.

Litigation

He has appeared in over 40 multi-million dollar federal court cases, including 4 with over $1 billion at stake, including:

  • $3 billion federal restitution action
  • $100+ million arbitration concerning private equity fund’s claim for performance fees
  • $25+ million state and federal RICO action
  • $13 million federal antitrust action
  • $500 million federal Ponzi scheme case
  • various SEC enforcement actions
  • $5.2 billion lawsuit relating to acquisition of public company by private equity firm
  • Multi-million patent defense in NY federal court
  • $4.5 billion merger litigation
  • $240 million Ponzi scheme case
  • $80 million securities fraud action stemming from a short-form merger
  • $80 million fraud claim against Swiss investment bank
  • Represented former CFO of Lehman Brothers in multi-billion dollar class action securities fraud litigation
  • $15 million SEC insider trading case
  • $6 million trade secret misappropriation case
  • Multi-million dollar employment contract dispute against privately held utility company
  • Breach of non-competition claim against former employee
  • $5 million wrongful discharge claim defense
  • $50+ million IP litigation
  • $25+ million bet the company litigation
  • $25+ million trade dress infringement claim
  • $10+ million breach of contract and fiduciary duty claim
  • $15+ million professional liability claim
  • $80+ million professional liability claim
  • Multi-million dollar defense of employment discrimination and retaliation claims against global conglomerate by head of HR overseeing 3,000+ employees

contact details

+1 203 424 8021
2 Corporate Drive, Suite 210, Trumbull, CT 06611

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Rich is a super intelligent attorney with a skilled chess grandmaster mindset — always looking at the big picture and thinking several moves ahead in the advice he gives. Fast document turn-around time with incredible structure and attention to detail built-in. Rich also did an amazing job of understanding my case and accurately communicating the proper tone in his correspondences as my representative.

Kenichi Ninomiya
Founder, Tech Company