About Roy
Partner, Dorsey & Whitney LLP
Honors:
2011 Minnesota Lawyer, Attorney of the Year
2011 Minnesota Lawyer, Circle of Excellence Award
2011 Chambers USA
2011 Best Lawyers in America
2011 Minnesota Super Lawyers
2011 The Legal 500, The Clients’ Guide to the US Legal Profession
2010, Lexology, Author of the Year, Overall
2010, Lexology, Author of the Year, Labor & Employment
2006 Minnesota Lawyer, Attorney of the Year
Contact Information:
Email: Ginsburg.Roy@dorsey.com
Minneapolis Office
(612) 340-8761 : Direct
(612) 340-2868 : Fax
(612) 868-7399: (Cell)
Background:
Roy Ginsburg is a partner in Dorsey’s Advocacy Group. Roy joined Dorsey in 1980, following his graduation from the University of Virginia School of Law. For more than 20 years, Roy was a Partner in the firm’s Trial Department; he now is a Partner in the Labor & Employment Law Department.
Roy’s practice involves a wide range of commercial litigation matters. For many years, he has focused on commercial disputes affecting the employment relationship, including, misappropriation of trade secrets, corporate raiding, usurpation of corporate opportunity, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract (such as post-employment restrictive covenants), and related claims. Roy also defends class, multi-party and individual employment discrimination litigation (such as sexual harassment, age, disability, race and sex discrimination claims) as well as the related common law claims invariably pled in connection with a discrimination lawsuit. In addition, Roy handles other types of commercial and insurance litigation.
Roy has been selected for recognition by Chambers USA every year since the publication began in 2004. In 2008, Roy was one of just five Minnesota employment attorneys given the Band 1 rating (the highest Chambers rating). (Dorsey is the only Minnesota law firm that has received the Chambers Band 1 Rating for its employment law group every year since Chambers began rating Minnesota firms.)
Roy also has been repeatedly selected as a Minnesota Super Lawyer since that ranking commenced. Roy also has been routinely selected as one of Minnesota’s “Leading Employment Attorneys” by the Law & Leading Attorneys publication.
In 2011, Roy was selected by Minnesota Lawyer magazine as a 2011 “Attorney of the Year.” The award was based upon his representation of Revis Stephenson III, the former Chairman of the Board and CEO of Advanced BioEnergy, LLC. (A description of the litigation involving Mr. Stephenson and ABE is written up in the content below, in the article entitled, “How to Lose $4 Million When Firing an Executive – What Happens When It All Goes Wrong?” Roy’s selection by Minnesota Lawyer for this honor also resulted in his selection for the “Circle of Excellence Award,” since this was the second time Roy was selected as an “Attorney of the Year.” Roy’s first selection for this honor occurred in 2006, following his successful representation of Cisco Systems, Inc. and individual defendants in a misappropriation of trade secrets, usurpation of corporate opportunity, breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty lawsuit. The plaintiff corporation, which had been seeking $1.3 Billion in damages, received nothing, following an 8-week trial. The case was dismissed at the close of the plaintiff’s case-in-chief, a decision affirmed by the Minnesota Court of Appeals. This lawsuit marked Roy’s second successful representation of Cisco Systems, Inc. in significant litigation. In the first lawsuit, filed in the federal court for the District of Minnesota, the plaintiff corporation sought $450 Million in damages for corporate raiding, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of fiduciary duty and other claims. Cisco prevailed in that lawsuit on summary judgment, a decision affirmed by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
In addition to the Cisco lawsuits, other representative recent litigation handled by Roy includes: a) representation of Edwards Lifesciences LLC and several individuals in a series of lawsuits in multiple jurisdictions brought by Boston Scientific Corporation against the defendants for breach of contract (a non-solicitation restrictive covenant), misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of fiduciary duty, and other claims; b) representation of Piper Jaffray & Co. in a lawsuit against another company and former Piper employees for misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract and other claims; case resolved on the eve of trial when the defendants agreed to the entry of a permanent injunction; c) representation of Sun Microsystems, Inc. and two Sun employees, who had been sued by a former employer; the plaintiff’s motion for a TRO was denied, at which point, the plaintiff dropped its lawsuit; d) representation of Amcom Software, Inc. and an Amcom employee who had been sued by another corporation on various legal theories; the federal court in New Hampshire denied the plaintiff company’s motion for a preliminary injunction, after which it dropped its lawsuit; e) representation of Adeptyx Consulting, Inc. in a action brought against Adeptyx and one of its employees; plaintiff sought a preliminary injunction in federal court in Boston; the judge denied the request for injunctive relief, after which the litigation settled for a nominal sum; f) representation of KMG America, Inc. and another corporation, and six of KMG’s executives in a lawsuit by another insurance company involving claims of breach of fiduciary duty, raiding, misappropriation of trade secrets and numerous other claims; plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction against KMG and the other defendants was denied, a decision affirmed by the Minnesota Court of Appeals; later, defendants brought a successful motion for summary judgment, resulting in the dismissal of 10 of the Complaint’s 12 counts, and 6 of 9 defendants, including the two corporate defendants; the case settled soon after; g) representation of six executives of AgriBioTech, Inc., including the CEO, CFO, General Counsel and others, in a lawsuit brought by a bankruptcy trustee under the “zone of insolvency” theory; after first obtaining a reversal of the coverage denial decision under a Directors and Officers’ Liability Policy, the case proceeded; ultimately, the lawsuit was settled though none of Roy’s clients contributed a penny toward the settlement; and f) representation of a Minnesota-based defense contractor in connection with a series of age discrimination lawsuits (at one point, there were 54 separate claimants); after defeating a motion to certify the group as a class, the defendant prevailed on a series of summary judgments, after which the remaining plaintiffs either dismissed their claims or settled for nominal amounts.
Roy also represents numerous executives and former executives in connection with contract negotiations and disputes with their employers. As referenced above, Roy also has defended innumerable individual and multi-party discrimination claims, in both federal and state court and before federal and state administrative agencies.
Roy is a frequent lecturer at CLEs and industry-based seminars, on a wide variety of topics, including, employment discrimination, sexual harassment, post-employment restrictive covenants, fiduciary duties, and numerous other subjects. Several of Roy’s most popular seminars are: “Employees Gone Wild!” and “Management and Human Resources Mistakes.” He also makes regular presentations for clients on client-specific topics, and has developed an Employment Seminar Series, encompassing 16 different seminars linked together in four modules, each consisting of four related seminars.
Roy started and edited Dorsey’s Employment Law Newsletter for more than a decade before turning his writing focus to his Blog. In addition to writing more than 150 articles for the Quirky Questions Blog, Roy also writes regularly for various other publications. Illustrative articles written by Roy include:
“The Impact of Technological Developments on the Workplace, Part 1 and Part 2” Employment Law Strategist, January and February 2009
“Lawsuits by In-House Counsel Against Their Employers,” (Part 1), BNA’s Corporate Counsel Weekly, December 23, 2008
“Lawsuits by In-House Counsel Against Their Employers,” (Part 2) BNA’s Corporate Counsel Weekly, December 23, 2008
“Is Bizarre Behavior ‘Notice’ for FMLA Purposes?,” August 8, 2008
“Conducting Investigations of Wrongful Workplace Conduct,” Business Law Today, May 2008
“Workforce Reduction Done Right,” Employment Law 360, December 17, 2007
While Roy has had a long and enjoyable career at Dorsey (now more than 31 years), he had some interesting work experiences even before law school. Roy worked on an investigation of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System for a year in Anchorage, AK. Before that, Roy worked as a research assistant for Ladislas Farago, the author of Patton, The Broken Seal, and numerous other works. Roy took a six-month break from his time at Carleton College to work on the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (a/k/a, the Watergate Committee) headed by Senator Sam Ervin, where Roy worked under the direction of Sam Dash and Terry Lenzner.
Education:
University of Virginia, School of Law (1980)
Carleton College, Northfield MN, Magna Cum Laude (1975)
Personal:
When not working, Roy enjoys virtually all sports, including tennis, golf, skiing, canoeing, hiking, biking and similar activities. For more than a decade, Roy was actively involved in coaching traveling youth sports teams (baseball, soccer, and basketball). These experiences culminated in taking a group of 12-year-old baseball players to Cooperstown for National Championship Week, and a group of 15-year-old baseball players to Ibaraki, Japan.
Roy also enjoys reading, writing and music.
