Eugene is a trusted advisor and advocate to corporate leaders, board committees and organizations facing internal investigations, government inquiries, and difficult problems. As Chambers USA describes, he “draws from a wealth of experience and knowledge to advise clients on internal and regulatory investigations and enforcement, where his impressive trial and appellate skills come to the fore.”
A nationally-recognized former federal prosecutor, Eugene delivers results in sensitive white collar criminal matters and leads corporate internal investigations involving financial reporting and disclosure, allegations of employee misconduct, intellectual property theft, and environmental issues. He has guided clients through all sorts of complex civil litigation, including federal and state class actions, whether securities, antitrust, ERISA, or various complex commercial disputes. He has tried many criminal and civil cases and argued more than a dozen cases before the U. S. Court of Appeals. Eugene also counsels founders, board members, and in-house teams of start-ups and growth companies, on crisis management and the intricacies of corporate compliance.
Eugene is a Fellow of the International Academy of Financial Crime Litigators. He serves as a Settlement Conference Officer on the San Francisco Superior Court’s Mandatory Settlement Conference Panel. Eugene co-chaired the Business Crimes, Investigations and Corporate Compliance Committee of the ABA Business Law Section in 2021-22 and served for several years on the federal Trial and Appellate Panels under the Criminal Justice Act. He served a three-year term (2013-2015) as a Commissioner of the State Bar of California’s Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation (JNE) and was a Visiting Lecturer at the UC Berkeley School of Law.
Before forming Illovsky Gates & Calia LLP, Eugene had been a partner in the international law firm of Morrison & Foerster LLP for almost twenty years. Eugene served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California (Sacramento) from 1992-1998, where he investigated and prosecuted a wide array of white-collar crimes, including investment frauds, money laundering, political corruption, intellectual property crimes, immigration fraud and tax evasion. The distinctions he earned for his work as an AUSA include:
- Director’s Award for Superior Performance from the Attorney General for a series of complex insurance fraud prosecutions
- Commendations from the FBI Director and the Attorney General
- Special Commendation from the Office of the Inspector General for his work on citizenship testing program fraud
- Commendation from Office of the Inspector General, Department of Agriculture, for prosecuting federal program fraud
- Appointment to the Department of Justice’s Campaign Finance Task Force to investigate allegations of illegal fundraising during the 1996 presidential election
- Appointment as Computer and Telecommunications Coordinator, the computer crime liaison to Main Justice for the Eastern District of California
Eugene is recognized in Chambers USA in Litigation: White Collar Crime & Government Investigations. He has been named to the Northern California Super Lawyers list as one of the top attorneys in Northern California for 2012–2024. Eugene is also listed in Best Lawyers® since 2012 as one of the best white collar criminal defense practitioners and, for 2024–2025, recognized for Commercial Litigation. Eugene was named by Best Lawyers® as the 2021, 2019 and 2017 Criminal Defense: White Collar “Lawyer of the Year” in Oakland. He was selected by Global Investigations Review’s independent research as one of the world’s leading investigations lawyers and is named in its International Who’s Who of Investigations Lawyers & Forensic Experts 2014. He has been recommended as a leading lawyer by Legal 500 US 2009 and 2014 for white-collar criminal defense.