TEL:+1 415.393.8362
FAX:+1 415.374.8460
One Embarcadero Center Suite 2600, San Francisco, CA 94111-3715 USA
Winston Y. Chan is a litigation partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s San Francisco office, and serves as co-chair of the firm’s global White Collar Defense and Investigations practice group, and also its False Claims Act/Qui Tam Defense practice group. He leads matters involving government enforcement defense, internal investigations and compliance counseling, and regularly represents clients before and in litigation against federal, state and local agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, and State Attorneys General.
Winston is a Chambers-ranked attorney in the category of White Collar Crime and Government Investigations, and Benchmark Litigation recognizes him as a Litigation Star for being “recommended consistently as a reputable and effective litigator by clients and peers.” He is regularly included in Best Lawyers, The Legal 500, and Who’s Who Legal for Investigations. In addition, Global Investigations Review ranks Winston in its annual Global Guide of Recommended Investigations Counsel, and he is a LMG Life Sciences “Star” in White Collar and Government Investigations.
Prior to joining the firm, Winston served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York, where he investigated a wide range of corporate and financial criminal matters as part of that office’s Business and Securities Fraud Section. Winston additionally prosecuted cases in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section, where he handled matters involving Italian, Eastern European and Asian criminal enterprises, for which the Attorney General awarded Winston one of the Department of Justice’s highest awards for his “exemplary and historic work.” As a senior prosecutor, Winston served in a number of supervisory roles at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including as Deputy Chief of the General Crimes section, where he supervised and trained that office’s line prosecutors, as well as Health Care Fraud Coordinator, where he oversaw criminal health care fraud and qui tam matters.
Recent significant engagements involving government enforcement defense include:
Recent significant engagements involving internal investigations include:
Winston earned his undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, from Yale University, and his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School, where he was on the Yale Law Journal and president of the Pacific Islander, Asian and Native American Law Students’ Association. Following law school, Winston served as a law clerk for the Honorable Leonard B. Sand of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and then for the Honorable Chester J. Straub of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. While a federal prosecutor, Winston taught a clinical course at Columbia Law School on the principles of federal prosecution and a first-year lawyering course at Fordham University School of Law.
He speaks conversational Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese, and serves on the Diversity Committee of the firm’s Bay Area offices.
Yale University - 2000 Juris Doctor
Yale University - 1997 Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude
California Bar