Ric T. Fukushima
Senior Associate
Orange County
Ric Fukushima is a litigation and trial attorney in the firm's Complex Litigation & Dispute Resolution group. Ric focuses his practice on high-stakes, complex business disputes and helps financial and technology sector clients strategically navigate their way through all stages of litigation.
Ric has extensive litigation experience in federal and state courts, including business tort, breach of contract, insurance, intellectual property, trade secrets, and product liability matters. Ric manages all aspects of litigation from start to finish and has significant experience with complex electronic discovery.
Ric is also an alumnus of the Orange County District Attorney's Office Trial Attorney Partnership ("TAP") program where he first-chaired two misdemeanor jury trials successfully to verdict and conducted numerous felony preliminary hearings.
Ric started his career at Orrick as a summer associate in the Orange County office. Ric lives in Costa Mesa with his wife Natalie and their son Benjamin.
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Ric's representative experiences include the following:
- Cost of Insurance Litigation. Represents financial institution clients in breach of contract and tort actions against life insurance companies arising out of their decisions to raise cost of insurance rates on universal life insurance policies. These actions are currently pending in the Southern District of New York, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and Central District of California.
- Union Carbide Corporation. Member of the Orrick team representing Union Carbide as national coordinating and trial counsel in ongoing asbestos-related product liability litigation. Ric is a member of the Orrick team that has taken numerous disputes to trial, including a complete defense verdict in California and a recent favorable resolution after a multi-week jury trial in Oregon. Ric also oversees and manages the company's litigation docket in various states of the Western United States.
- Bad Faith Insurance Coverage Litigation. Represented IEC, a for-profit education company, in a bad faith insurance coverage action against its insurer arising out of the insurer’s wrongful settlement of an underlying class action lawsuit.
- Trade Secrets Litigation. Defended client against allegations of trade secrets misappropriation relating to hydrocolloid solutions, gellan gums, and biogums technology.
- Internal Investigations. Member of the Orrick team that conducted internal investigations for various Fortune companies, both nationally and internationally, including FCPA and financial irregularity investigations.
- DISH Network. Represented DISH Network Corporation and its subsidiaries in various patent infringement lawsuits in federal district courts, including the Central District of California, the District of Colorado, and the Eastern District of Texas. The technology at issue in those cases related to data transmission, electronic signal processing, and electronic programming guides.
- Fujifilm and Konica Minolta. Represented Fujifilm and Konica Minolta as co-defendants in a patent infringement lawsuit in the Eastern District of Texas involving electronic signal processing technology within commercial camera and printer products.
- Pro Bono. Ric is also proud of his pro bono work and community involvement. He currently represents a veteran client on his appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims based on denial of his claim for disability benefits.
