Evan J. Gibbs

Evan is a practical, results-oriented attorney who partners with business clients to address their most critical corporate espionage matters. These matters typically involve the theft or unlawful retention of trade secrets and other confidential information by groups or individual former executives, employees, contractors, vendors, or other third parties. As co-chair of the firm’s Corporate Espionage Response Team, Evan leads a multidisciplinary group of attorneys with extensive experience regarding corporate espionage matters. Together with a team of attorneys and technical experts, they leverage their deep experience with digital forensic investigations to ensure that clients’ matters are handled using the most cutting-edge forensic technology available. Evan and his team handle these matters throughout the United States.

These matters also often involve the enforcement of noncompete, nonsolicitation, and nondisclosure agreements, another specific area Evan focuses his practice on. He has extensive experience drafting, enforcing, and defending against the enforcement of these types of agreements in numerous states across the U.S. His practice further encompasses disputes involving departed executives and other high-level employees (often involving business-to-business litigation), including claims of tortious interference, breach of fiduciary duties, breach of contract, fraud, civil conspiracy, defamation, and other business torts.

Evan’s work has been covered by, Court TV, Dateline, 60 minutes, NBC New York, Bloomberg News, Law & Crime Network, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Los Angeles Daily News, BuzzFeed News, and others. He also serves as an adjunct professor of law at the Emory University School of Law teaching corporate espionage investigations and litigation. Evan is a former columnist for AboveTheLaw.com, where he wrote about legal issues in the context of popular culture.

Evan also regularly provides pro bono legal representation to various charitable organizations and individuals. He is one of the attorneys representing Ryan Duke in the State of Georgia v. Duke litigation involving the disappearance of Tara Grinstead, a case covered by the Up and Vanished podcast and other media outlets.

• Defended global manufacturing client against claims by competitor of trade secret theft by more than 30 individuals across multiple states and, in same case, prosecuted claims of trade secret theft against opposing party by multiple individuals, resulting in favorable negotiated resolution of all claims.
• Successfully defended and resolved raiding and poaching case involving more than 100 employees in multiple jurisdictions between competing financial services companies.
• Using advanced digital forensics technology, investigated theft of critical business data by departed Canadian manufacturing executive.
• Defended and secured dismissal of case involving breach of noncompete and nonsolicitation agreements by departed sales leader.
• Investigated theft and use of sensitive corporate data by competitor taken via departed Mexican manufacturing executive.
• Successfully defended and resolved dispute involving purported theft of trade secrets by departed key sales and account director.
• Successfully pursued claims against departing executive who absconded with large volume of company data, ultimately recovering stolen data and more than $300,000 in attorneys’ fees in case involving evidence destruction and perjury.
• Pursued claims of trade secret misappropriation, breach of contract, and civil conspiracy, among others, on behalf of a global distributor against a competitor and a group of defecting former employees, with parties all located in different states, using extensive forensic discovery to uncover evidence destruction and perjury, resulting in substantial settlement.
• Defended and negotiated a favorable settlement of a lawsuit against a national construction company involving breach of restrictive covenants and trade secret theft by a group of former sales employees.
• Secured full dismissal of case against a national technology device and services vendor and its CEO involving claims of breach of contract and trade secret misappropriation.
• Obtained full dismissal of all claims against a multistate technology services company against claims of trade secret misappropriation, among others, resulting in the first published decision in Georgia (and one of the first in the U.S.) under the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016.
• Defended claims in arbitration against a global technology services company brought by a former executive alleging breach of contract.
• Secured $65,000 attorneys’ fees award for client against a plaintiff based on the frivolous nature of certain claims.
• Represented professional sports financial management company and its owners in business dissolution case with former partners involving numerous claims and counterclaims, ending with favorable settlement and dissolving of former business.
• Pursued breach of restrictive covenant agreement between global manufacturing company and national competitor restricting sale of certain products, resulting in favorable published decision under the Sherman Antitrust Act which was leveraged for substantial settlement.
• Pursued injunctive relief based on various constitutional violations on behalf of national manufacturing client against the State of Georgia to prevent imposition of significant bonding and depositing requirements.
• Represents Ryan Alexander Duke as co-trial and co-appellate counsel in State v. Duke, which is the subject of the Up and Vanished podcast and which is being covered by other national media outlets including NBC, ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, and others.
• Represented domestic abuse victims in court to secure restraining orders against abusers.

• Best Lawyers in America®: Ones to Watch: Labor and Employment Law – Management (2021-2025), Litigation – Labor and Employment (2022-2025), Real Estate Law (2024)
• Rising Star, Law & Politics’ Georgia Super Lawyers (2017-2019)
• Rising Star, Law & Politics’ Florida Super Lawyers (2015, 2016)