Ryan Guilds’ practice focuses on intellectual property, product and trade channel integrity, complex products liability litigation, white collar criminal defense, internal company compliance, and victim’s rights.
Ryan has significant expertise addressing a variety of compliance and business integrity initiatives, including anti-counterfeiting, brand protection, supply chain security, FCPA compliance, and Know Your Business Partner (KYBP) initiatives. Ryan leverages his extensive experience implementing brand protection strategies to provide cutting-edge, practical advice to clients seeking to mitigate the legal and reputational risks associated with in-house and external investigative programs. He regularly advises clients working with prosecutors and law enforcement to protect business intellectual property rights and has global experience implementing supply chain and brand protection, investigative, and trade policy programs in support of companies and their products.
Ryan also has over two decades of experience representing pharmaceutical clients in connection with mass tort product-liability litigation. He has extensive experience developing, preparing, and defending expert witnesses and routinely supervises large scale e-discovery initiatives. His experience extends to developing and supervising large-scale motion practice and discovery in wide-ranging litigations, including several MDL matters.
Ryan is a recognized national victims’ rights expert who represents survivors of crime in connection with the investigation and prosecution of their assailants as well as corporations seeking restitution for intellectual property harm. Under his leadership, the firm has represented dozens of sexual assault survivors in both civilian and military proceedings pro bono. He is on the board of the National Crime Victim Law Institute, the honorary board of Protect Our Defenders, is a Member of the ABA Domestic and Sexual Violence Committee, and is the former board chair of the Network for Victim Recovery of D.C.
Ryan's pro bono experience also includes a career-long commitment to the representation of indigent criminal defendants — including a matter in which he successfully obtained the release of a wrongfully convicted man on death row. As a result of his work, he was honored by the Pennsylvania Capital Representation Project for his extraordinary efforts on behalf of Pennsylvania's death row inmates.
Experience
- Large pharmaceutical client in developing comprehensive procedures and protocols in connection with the use of investigative resources to combat illegal trafficking in counterfeit and misbranded pharmaceutical products.
- Developed a compliance program and process in support of a global brand protection program.
- Created and implemented compliance reviews of customers in support of company-wide know your customer initiatives.
- Consumer products company in negotiations with prosecutors regarding a wide range of requests for information from federal and state law enforcement agencies.
- U.S.-based consumer products company in developing working beneficial relationships with federal and state prosecutors.
- Supervised the implementation of an international brand protection program in Asia.
- FORTUNE 500 company in developing a comprehensive know your business partner compliance program, including program design and structure, code of conduct/policy revision, training, and ongoing monitoring.
- Large U.S.-based consumer products company regarding post-closing compliance remediation following the acquisition of newly acquired business functions.
Recognition
Credentials
Education
- J.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law, 1997, high honors
- B.A., SUNY at Buffalo, 1994, magna cum laude
Admissions
- District of Columbia
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
- U.S. District Court, District of Columbia
- Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces
Clerkships
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, The Honorable J. Dickson Phillips, Jr.