About TGF
The Golan Firm Perspective
“Knowing the law is table stakes. Knowing the psychology of the plaintiffs’ bar? That’s TGF’s edge.”
TGF brings a dual-perspective advantage to class action defense. Having practiced at both a top-tier plaintiffs’ class action boutique and an Am Law 10 defense firm, we’ve lived both sides of the litigation lifecycle. That experience gives us insight into not just how cases are built, but how they can be avoided. Our hard-won perspective helps us identify opportunities that other defense firms miss, creating a path for our clients to achieve an efficient and favorable outcome.
As former plaintiffs’ counsel, we know how they decide whether to file a case and what pressures shape their decisions: from financing and managing the case, to recruiting and maintaining a class representative, navigating discovery, and pushing toward certification, settlement, or appeal. We don’t just “know”plaintiff counsel’s challenges; we’ve handled them ourselves.
That insight allows us to spot and exploit doubts plaintiffs’ counsel have about their own case — whether it’s the manageability of a proposed class, the strength of factual proof, the financial risk, or legal uncertainty caused by competing firms’ parallel litigation — and use those doubts to shift momentum in our clients’ favor.
Similarly, we have employed, and sometimes pioneered, the effective tactics that plaintiffs’ firms deploy in prosecuting class actions. That means we can anticipate their moves, uncover their weak spots, and counter their strategy before it gains traction.
And while litigation is adversarial by nature, we know that collaboration often gets results. Our experience on both sides of the “v” has earned us the respect of colleagues across the plaintiffs’ and defense bar, creating opportunities for resolution where others find only impasse.
“TGF brings a killer combination of BigLaw experience and boutique precision to every case.”
Our firm is small by design. We have the flexibility to quickly adapt to our clients’ needs, and our national reputation proves that we punch above our weight. We provide bespoke representation to every phase of litigation, from spearheading pre-suit strategy and early negotiations, leading motions practice, managing large discovery review and production, preparing witnesses and experts, taking case-defining depositions, and handling appeals.
When it comes to factual investigation and discovery, we don’t just keep up; we innovate. We create and implement case-specific technology solutions to increase efficiency and quality consistency while lowering costs.
The Small Firm Advantage
Meet Yve Golan
Yvette (“Yve”) Golan is a seasoned litigator with extensive experience in class actions and other complex commercial matters. She brings the perspective of both sides (plaintiff and defense), the court (as a former federal appellate clerk), and the client (as former general counsel).
Yve received her Juris Doctor from Cornell Law School in 2002, where she graduated magna cum laude and received the Order of the Coif. She served as Editor of the Cornell Law Review and as a research assistant to Professor Robert S. Summers, editing the fifth edition of the seminal White & Summers treatise on the Uniform Commercial Code. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Texas at Austin in 1999.
After law school, Yve clerked on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for former Chief Judge J. Clifford Wallace, in San Diego, CA. She then joined Kirkland & Ellis LLP at its main litigation office in Chicago, IL, where she focused on class action defense, complex business litigation, automotive product liability, bankruptcy restructuring, and toxic torts. In addition to counseling clients in risk mitigation efforts, Yve worked in all aspects of litigation, including arguing dispositive and other key motions in federal trial courts with a 100% win rate. She then served as a business director and general counsel at World Innova Inc., where she managed litigation, secured $500 million in financing, and obtained high-value contracts to manufacture and distribute high-volume consumer products to big-box retailers, including Walmart and Walgreens.
Yve currently leads The Golan Firm PLLC, where she has established a precedent-setting complex litigation, appellate, and class action practice through long-term collaboration with co-counsel firms across the U.S. and the help of over 60 clerks that she has hired, trained, and managed as employees of her firm. TGF has earned a national reputation in data privacy, consumer protection, deceptive advertising, TCPA, toxic chemical exposure, and other commercial matters. While TGF originally began as a plaintiff-side class action boutique, Yve Golan has now returned to her roots as a defense-side litigator.
Outside her legal practice, Yve is active in her community, particularly in mentoring young professionals in the Washington D.C. area and serves as the Co-Chair of the Women’s Bar Association Subcommittee of In-House Counsel. Ms. Golan has been interviewed in a wide variety of media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, Fox News, and the Associated Press. She is also a classical saxophonist.
Yve is licensed to practice law in the state courts of New York, Illinois, Texas, in the District of Columbia, and in numerous federal and appellate courts.
