Michael J. Gayan '08

Tell us about your background!

I’m a proud cheese head from Wisconsin. Growing up on a small farm gave me plenty of opportunities to work hard. Doing farm chores and watching my dad work long shifts at the local factory helped me realize that I wanted something other than a lifetime of manual labor. Fortunately for me, I had a knack for school and became the first person in my family to go to college. Then came Boyd. Seeing as I never knew a lawyer as a kid, I literally never dreamed of becoming one. Life truly is what you make of it.

What has the promotion to partner meant to you?

The opportunity to work with top-notch lawyers at Kemp, Jones & Coulthard has meant more to me than the new title. The current and former partners at the firm have been great mentors over the years and modeled what it takes to be a good litigator. Without that, I would not be where I am today.

Are you particularly proud of any cases?

I do quite a bit of class action work, and the Kitec plumbing case really stands out. We represented 32,000 Las Vegas homeowners with defective plumbing systems. The litigation involved more than 50 defendants, and ended up going to trial two times for different subclasses--both of which we won as plaintiff representatives. When all was said and done, we recovered more than $240 million with all net proceeds getting to the class members.