Experience
Chris Gribble is Of Counsel to the firm. He is a trial attorney with experience taking cases through judgment in both jury and bench trials, as well as through judicial reference and arbitration. He has litigated in California, Delaware, Colorado, and Texas, both in state and federal court.
Chris maintains a diverse complex litigation practice with an emphasis on partnership and joint venture disputes. In his business litigation practice, Chris represents partnerships, individual partners, members, investors, and shareholders in matters involving fiduciary duties, fraud allegations, and business torts. Chris has experience defending dissolutions of closely-held corporations and limited partnerships. He has both pursued and defended claims seeking to pierce the corporate veil. Chris is knowledgeable on the business judgment rule, including its application to limited partnerships in California courts, and has experience both invoking the rule on behalf of his management clients and defeating application of the rule on behalf of his plaintiff clients. Chris also counsels his corporate clients on complying with Proposition 65 requirements and defending lawsuits alleging Proposition 65 violations.
Chris has also represented corporate clients in patent litigation, securities enforcement actions, real estate and construction litigation, and cases involving environmental cleanup claims. When not representing his corporate clients, Chris enjoys serving as a strategic advisor to his small business and individual clients in the myriad disputes they encounter in their professional and personal lives. He is an expert with procedure and routinely leverages prejudgment remedies to protect the interests of his clients. He has secured writ of attachments and writ of possessions, including through stand-alone petitions in state court while litigating the underlying liability as part of a separate arbitration. Chris is also experienced in defending against court-appointed receiverships.
Chris earned his law degree from Berkeley Law. In his third-year, he volunteered as a California Bar certified law clerk at the Contra Costa Public Defender's Office, during which time he argued multiple motions to dismiss, and personally defensed a felony charge for one of his clients at a preliminary hearing.
He earned his master's degree in Chemistry at U.C. Berkeley, where he served as a graduate student instructor in undergraduate organic chemistry and graduate organometallic chemistry. His master's thesis involved the study of highly unstable organometallic compounds that decayed through novel pathways. Chris earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Ohio State University, graduating summa cum laude.
Prior to joining Bartko Zankel Bunzel & Miller, Chris practiced at Nassiri & Jung LLP, a San Francisco litigation boutique firm, WilmerHale, an international firm in intellectual property, Cox Castle & Nicholson, a real estate boutique firm, and Farella Braun Martel, a litigation boutique firm. Outside the office, Chris enjoys spending time with his two young daughters in North Berkeley where they live.