October 14, 2019
As a partner at Cohen Milstein, Carol Gilden fearlessly fights big challenges to ensure that investors aren’t being shortchanged by fraud or illegal practices.
Although there are a few principles and philosophies by which Carol Gilden operates, mentors, and leads, she says the guiding principle of her legal work boils down to a basic—or, at least, what should be a basic—fact of life.
“It’s about doing the right thing and making the right choices. I’m proud of my work because we are fighting for people and institutions who have been harmed by illegal business practices. Fraud is never sustainable,” she says. “Illegal business practices are never sustainable as a business model. The truth always comes out.”
In her role as a partner in the securities litigation and investor protection practice group in Cohen Milstein’s Chicago office, Gilden maintains a relentless pursuit of that truth as she represents public pension funds, Taft-Hartley pension plans, and health and welfare funds as well as other institutional investors in securities class actions and transaction and derivative litigation. She also handles complex litigation in addition to class actions in state and federal courts nationwide and advises clients regarding foreign securities litigation.
It might sound like she covers a lot of varying ground, but Gilden says she sees all the work she does as having a unified mission.
“It all falls under the same idea of accountability,” she says. “At the end of the day, fraud is rampant in our marketplace, and investors have the right to invest based on full information and without someone cooking the books or rigging the system against them. The reality is that fraud manifests itself in a variety of different ways, so when misconduct is uncovered, we have to be creative and look at all the laws available to address the problem.”