Rafey S. Balabanian

Curriculum Vitae

RAFEY BALABANIAN is the Managing Partner of Edelson PC and its director of nationwide litigation. He started his career a trial lawyer, serving as a prosecutor for the City of Chicago where he took part in dozens of trials. Rafey went on to join a litigation boutique in Chicago where he continued his trial work, before eventually starting with Edelson in 2008. He is regarded by his peers as a highly skilled litigator, and has been appointed lead class counsel in more than two dozen class actions in state and federal courts across the country. His work has led to groundbreaking results in trial courts nationwide, including a $925 million jury verdict which stands as the largest privacy verdict in this nation’s history.

Some of Rafey’s other more notable achievements consist of nationwide settlements involving the telecom industry, including companies such as AT&T, Google, Sony, Motricity, and OpenMarket valued at more than $100 million.

Rafey has also been appointed to the Executive Committee in the NCAA concussion cases, considered to be “one of the largest actions pending in the country, a multi district litigation … that currently included about 100 personal injury class actions filed by college football players[.]” He represents labor unions and governmental entities in lawsuits against the drug manufacturers and distributors over the on-going opioid crisis. And he serves on the creditor’s committee in the PG&E bankruptcy action in the wake of the California wildfires.

Rafey’s class action practice also includes his work in the privacy sphere, and he has reached groundbreaking settlements with companies like Netflix, LinkedIn, Walgreens, Nationstar and comScore. Rafey served as lead counsel in the case of Dunstan, et al. v. comScore, Inc., No. 11-cv-5807 (N.D. Ill.), where he led the effort to secure class certification of what is believed to be the largest adversarial class to be certified in a privacy case in the history of US jurisprudence.

Rafey’s work in general complex commercial litigation includes representing clients ranging from “emerging technology” companies, real estate developers, hotels, insurance companies, lenders, shareholders and attorneys. He has successfully litigated numerous multi-million dollar cases, including several “bet the company” cases.

Rafey is a frequent speaker on class and mass action issues, and has served as a guest lecturer on several occasions at UC Berkeley Boalt School of Law. Rafey also serves on the Executive Committee of the Antitrust, Unfair Competition and Privacy Section of the State Bar of California where he has been appointed Vice Chair of Privacy, as well as the Executive Committee of the Privacy and Cybersecurity Section of the Bar Association of San Francisco.

Rafey received his J.D. from the DePaul University College of Law in 2005. A native of Colorado, Rafey received his B.A. in History, with distinction, from the University of Colorado – Boulder in 2002.

Rafey moved to Chicago for law school, where he lived for the next 13 years before relocating to San Francisco with his wife and two boys in 2016 to found Edelson’s west coast office. Living in California has always been one of Rafey’s life-long dreams, mainly because it provides the opportunity for year-round tennis (and to a lesser extent golf) and with it, the chance for his two boys to be professional tennis players.

Rafey is admitted to the State Bars of California and Illinois.