Fred L. Wilks

Phone: 949-450-4425
Email: fwilks@hodelwilks.com

Fred Wilks has more than twenty years of experience representing clients in diverse areas of commercial litigation, including contractual disputes and business torts, commercial real estate litigation, commercial lender litigation, construction litigation, partnership and shareholder disputes, dissolution actions, legal malpractice, fraud and consumer class actions, unfair business practice claims, and trade secrets litigation.

Professional Highlights

Obtained an arbitration award against the manager of venture capital investment funds on behalf of the investors. The arbitration established that the manager of the funds misused investor funds in breach of its contractual obligations and in breach of its fiduciary duties, and the arbitrator ordered the removal of the defendant as manager of the funds. The arbitrator awarded the investors damages in the amount of $12 million, and ordered the manager to pay the investors’ attorneys’ fees.
Successfully defended a lawsuit filed by a member of a limited liability company accusing our client, the company’s managing member, of committing an $8 million fraud, mismanaging the company, and falsifying accounting records. The client was absolved of all claims. Instead, the limited liability company owed our client nearly $3 million and we obtained an order dissolving the company under our client’s full control.
Obtained a judgment of specific performance in favor of our client, a publicly-traded real estate investment trust, requiring the defendant to transfer to our client its fifty-percent interest in a $30 million shopping center. The trial court also awarded damages.
Successfully defended corporate directors in a three-month trial of a shareholder derivative lawsuit seeking recovery of $90 million. The lawsuit challenged the hiring, compensation package, and termination decisions made by the company’s board of directors concerning the president of a publicly-traded entertainment company.
Successfully obtained an order on behalf of several trade associations enjoining a California regulatory agency from implementing and enforcing new regulations that exceeded the agency’s authority and imposed undue burdens on California businesses.
On several occasions, Mr. Wilks has obtained judgments on behalf of corporate clients against their former employees permanently enjoining the employees from using the clients’ trade secrets to solicit the clients’ customers.
Active member of the Orange County Bar Association’s Professionalism and Ethics Committee and authored articles on legal ethics topics published in the Orange County Bar Association publication, Orange County Lawyer. Presented at continuing legal education lectures, including the annual CEB Recent Developments in California Civil Litigation.
Formerly served on the Orange County Bar Association’s Judiciary Committee, which evaluates judicial applicants and candidates and makes confidential recommendations to the Governor’s office, and public recommendations for judicial election candidates.
Volunteered as a judge for the U.C. Irvine School of Law Moot Court Program, and for many years as a scorekeeper for the Orange County Constitutional Rights Foundations’ mock trial contests.

Mr. Wilks was formerly a litigation associate with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP.

Education

Mr. Wilks graduated from UCLA School of Law where he received the American Jurisprudence Award for his performance in Business Associations, and was named Moot Court Outstanding Brief Writer in the Moot Court Honors Program. He received his bachelor’s degree with honors from the University of Southern California.