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Overview

Gabe Doble joined Dovel & Luner after graduating magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he served as Articles Co-Chair for the Harvard Law Review.  He spent two years at the firm before leaving to clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and returned to the firm after his clerkship. 

In his first two years at Dovel & Luner, Gabe argued at several hearings, took five depositions (including depositions of named defendants), defended three depositions, and was the primary drafter of over twenty briefs and five complaints.  Gabe was also on the trial team in a month-long jury trial involving trade secret misappropriation, in which Gabe put on one of the plaintiff’s key expert witnesses and successfully handled a difficult oral argument concerning a highly contested verdict form.

Gabe’s litigation experience extends beyond his time at the firm.  In law school, Gabe wrote the bulk of a brief submitted to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, arguing that a state agency’s denial of a certificate for a $1.6 billion energy project should be affirmed.  The court unanimously affirmed, adopting many of the arguments in Gabe’s brief.  Gabe also wrote a petition for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court as part of the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic.  In his federal appellate clerkship, Gabe spent countless hours researching complex legal issues, analyzing arguments, and drafting opinions, all while developing an understanding of how judges decide cases.

When he is not thinking about the law, Gabe enjoys playing and coaching ultimate frisbee, hiking, snowboarding, playing board games, and traveling.

Education

  • Harvard Law School, (J.D., magna cum laude, 2020)
  • Middlebury College, (B.A., summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, 2017)

Prior Associations

  • Law Clerk to Judge William J. Kayatta, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit

Notable Cases

Pharmaceutical pilfering.  Gabe represented a development-stage pharmaceutical company researching treatments for cancer and other diseases.  Our client had disclosed its confidential and proprietary information to a larger pharmaceutical company during discussions about a potential partnership.  Soon after, that company cut off negotiations and began developing its own programs that looked suspiciously similar to our client’s.  We filed a complaint alleging breach of contract and trade secret misappropriation.   We also asked the court to enjoin the larger company’s programs during the course of litigation, submitting a brief with extensive legal analysis supported by an in-depth scientific expert report describing how our client’s trade secrets would have been useful to the larger company.  The case settled on confidential terms while the motion was pending.

Merger squeeze-out.  Gabe represented a minority shareholder of a startup company.  After our client had helped develop the platform for the startup, other members of the company’s leadership started a new company using a similar model—in which they owned a larger portion of the shares.  Those individuals then caused a merger between the companies, which valued the new company much more highly than the original startup.  The result was that shareholders like our client received a relatively small amount of compensation for their shares in the original startup.  We couldn’t file a derivative action because the original startup ceased to exist after the merger.  We instead alleged that the merger valued the original startup too low by failing to account for valuable claims that the startup had against the individuals who started the new company—namely, usurpation of corporate opportunities.  The case settled on confidential terms.

Personal Facts

  • Gabe grew up in an off-the-grid, solar-powered house in the middle of the woods in Maine.
  • Gabe is an avid ultimate frisbee player.
  • Gabe has summited Mt. Ngauruhoe (popularly known as Mt. Doom from the Lord of the Rings trilogy), an active volcano in New Zealand.

Joining Dovel & Luner

I first saw the name Dovel & Luner in an email my 1L summer.  It promised an alternative to Biglaw where I could run my own cases and be a litigator rather than a document reviewer.  It placed an emphasis on lawyer development rather than hours billed.  And it had a nice picture of the beach.

At my Biglaw interviews, I scrounged for minute differences between nearly indistinguishable firms.  For my Dovel & Luner interview, I prepared a cross-examination.

I split my 2L summer between Dovel & Luner and a Biglaw firm.  At both firms, I worked with smart, skilled, and kind lawyers.  At both firms, I made meaningful contributions to the cases I worked on.  But as I looked one, two, three, four, five years into the future, I could spot the differences.  In Biglaw, it was unlikely I would argue a motion in my first two years, let alone my first two months.  I would spend years climbing the ladder until I could finally stand up in court, whereas at Dovel & Luner the ladder was more like a stepping stool.  I couldn’t wait to get started.

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