Alan Devlin represents clients in antitrust and competition matters, including merger clearance, antitrust litigation and appeals, and government investigations. A former Acting Deputy Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Bureau of Competition, Mr. Devlin focuses his practice on the intersection of intellectual property and competition law.

Under the supervision of Judge Richard A. Posner, Mr. Devlin received a doctorate of jurisprudence (JSD), focusing in antitrust law and economics, from the University of Chicago. He also clerked for the late Judge Richard D. Cudahy of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and for Judge Amy J. St. Eve of the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (now of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit).

Thought Leadership

Mr. Devlin has authored three books — Reforming Antitrust (Cambridge Univ. Press 2020) (forthcoming), Antitrust & Patent Law (Oxford Univ. Press 2016), and Fundamental Principles of Law & Economics (Routledge 2014) — and over 30 law review articles, many of which have been cited in cases or have won awards.

His articles appear in the Stanford Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Yale Law & Policy Review, William & Mary Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, the Journal of Competition Law & Economics, and elsewhere.

Mr. Devlin presently teaches antitrust as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center. He has previously taught courses on law and economics, innovation policy, competition and intellectual property.

Mr. Devlin advises on all aspects of antitrust law, including merger clearance before the FTC and Department of Justice, as well as counseling and litigation.

Merger Clearance

His merger clearance experience includes representing:

  • Crimson Midstream in its 2020 acquisition of the San Pablo Bay oil pipeline from Shell in California
  • IPSCO in its US$1.2 billion 2019 acquisition by Tenaris in the oil country tubular goods industry
  • Hortonworks in its US$5.2 billion 2018 merger of equals with Cloudera in the Hadoop space
  • DXC Technology in its US$231 million 2018 acquisition of Molina in the Medicaid Management Information Systems space, and its US$2 billion 2019 acquisition of Luxoft

Antitrust Litigation

Mr. Devlin’s recent litigation experience includes representing:

  • NorthBay in its monopolization action against Kaiser Foundation Health Plan in the Northern District of California
  • U.S. Soccer against antitrust claims brought by the North American Soccer League in the Eastern District of New York

Government Investigations

Mr. Devlin represents clients with respect to government antitrust investigations, FTC 6(b) industry studies, and in approaching the FTC and DOJ to secure intervention on behalf of companies threatened by a loss of competition.

Bar Qualification

  • California
  • District of Columbia

Education

  • JD, Stanford Law School, 2007
  • JSD, University of Chicago Law School, 2006
  • LLM, University of Chicago Law School, 2005
  • BBLS (International), University College Dublin, 2004
    First-Class Honours