Jake Ryan

Practice Areas

Jake Ryan, the former Global Co-Chair of Latham’s Complex Commercial Litigation Practice, represents corporations and individual executives in complex litigation and government investigations.

Mr. Ryan tries cases in courts across the United States. He has tried more than two dozen jury trials to verdict as lead trial counsel. Mr. Ryan has prevailed in jury trials or on pretrial motions in numerous subject matter areas, including the following:

• Breach of contract

• Healthcare fraud

• Breach of fiduciary duty

• Trade secret misappropriation

• Unfair competition

• Financial and tax fraud

• Biotech patent litigation

• Toxic torts

Mr. Ryan leads litigation teams on many high-profile matters and is frequently mentioned in the press. In 2023 alone, Mr. Ryan was the American Lawyer Litigator of the Week twice, once for a jury trial win and once for persuading the Department of Justice to dismiss a federal indictment only weeks before a multi-defendant criminal trial. He was separately featured in American Lawyer in February 2023.

Before joining Latham, Mr. Ryan served as a federal prosecutor in Chicago for five years. Before law school, Mr. Ryan was a Navy Pilot. He served in the Arabian Gulf and Somalia and was commended for bravery for his actions during an inflight emergency.

Mr. Ryan served in the Department of Justice as an Assistant United States Attorney where he prosecuted cases in the area of “white collar” fraud, terrorism, tax evasion, and organized crime. During his tenure with the Department of Justice, he was appointed as Special Attorney to the US Attorney General for the purpose of defending an Assistant US Attorney and a US Attorney’s Office in a criminal contempt action.

As an Assistant US Attorney, Mr. Ryan prosecuted two of the largest and most significant organized crime cases in the US; approximately 50 defendants were indicted in each case.

Mr. Ryan was a law clerk for Chief Judge Michael J. Melloy of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa.