Juris Doctor (J.D.)
Law
Northwestern University School of Law
1981
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Faculty
Faculty
Andrew I. Gavil
Professor
Department/Office
- Faculty, Law Department
School/College
- School of Law
Biography
Andy Gavil is a professor of law at the Howard University School of Law. He has been a member of the Howard faculty since 1989 and currently teaches courses on antitrust law, civil procedure, complex litigation, federal courts, and Supreme Court Jurisprudence (seminar). He has written, lectured, and commented extensively on antitrust law and procedure. Areas of interest include the role of the U.S. Supreme Court in formulating antitrust rules, antitrust litigation, exclusionary conduct by dominant firms, regulatory responses to new and disruptive technologies, firms, and business models, indirect purchaser rights, expert economic testimony and economic evidence, and comparative and international perspectives on competition policy. He is a co-author of a leading antitrust casebook with Professors William E. Kovacic and Jonathan B. Baker, Antitrust Law in Perspective: Cases Concepts and Problems in Competition Policy (5th ed. 2024), and of Andrew I. Gavil & Harry First, Microsoft and the Globalization of Antitrust Law: Competition Policy for the Twenty-First Century (2014).
From September 2012 to December 2014, Gavil served as the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
He has also been an active member of the American Bar Association’s Section of Antitrust Law. He received an Outstanding Performance Award in 2021 and currently serves as a Senior Editor of the Antitrust Law Journal. Gavil is also a member of the Advisory Board of the American Antitrust Institute and of the U.S. Advisory Board of the Loyola Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies.
Gavil received his B.A. magna cum laude in 1978 from Queens College of the City University of New York, and his J.D. in 1981 from Northwestern University School of Law, where he was a member of the Law Review.
Education & Expertise
Education
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)
Queens College, CUNY
1978
Areas of Expertise
Law
Specialty Areas: Antitrust Law, Civil Procedure and Complex Litigation
Academics
Academics
Antitrust Law
Advanced Antitrust & Competition Law (Seminar)
Civil Procedure
Complex Litigation
Federal Courts
Supreme Court Jurisprudence (Seminar)
Accomplishments
Accomplishments
American Bar Association, Antitrust Law Section, Outstanding Performance Award, 2021
For work on the Antitrust Section’s publications as a former chair of the Antitrust Law Journal’s Editorial Board, and senior editor and occasional symposium organizer and editor. And for work encouraging young lawyers to consider careers in antitrust law.
Jerry S. Cohen Memorial Award for Antitrust Scholarship
Presented by Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, LLP, at the Annual Meeting of the American Antitrust Institute, Washington, D.C., June 18, 2015 (for Andrew I. Gavil & Harry First, The Microsoft Antitrust Cases (MIT Press 2014).
Concurrences, Antitrust Writing Award 2013
Best Anticompetitive Practices Article (for Moving Beyond Characterization and Caricature: The Modern Rule of Reason in Practice, 85 S. Cal. L. Rev. 733 (2012)), Spring 2013.
Specified beneficiary of unrestricted gift from Google Inc. to Howard University School of Law to support antitrust research, Spring 2010
American Bar Association, Section of Antitrust Law, Special Award, 2006
For work on Section Task Forces and on the “Why Antitrust?” recruitment program
Featured News
Featured News
Read: Bloomberg Law | Trump Firing of FTC Commissioner Threatens Broader War at Agency
Read: WIRED | FTC v. Meta Trial: The Future of Instagram and WhatsApp Is at Stake
Listen: Rethinking Antitrust Podcast | #15: The Microsoft Framework: Shaping Antitrust Enforcement Today
Listen: Ruled by Reason Podcast | Antitrust Reform from Within the Federal Antitrust Agencies: Navigating Institutional Dynamics in Implementing Policy Shifts
Read: The New York Times | How Microsoft’s Legal Legacy Shapes the Antitrust Case Against Google
Read: The Washington Post | Trustbusters are bypassing the biggest tech company of them all
Publications and Presentations
Publications and Presentations
Books
When the first edition of Gavil, Kovacic & Baker’s Antitrust Law in Perspective was published more than 20 years ago, the contours of antitrust law seemed relatively stable. More than two decades later, a robust debate has emerged in the U.S. and across the globe about the policy wisdom of that once stable direction and its future course. Skepticism of mergers is up, multiple major monopolization cases have been commenced, and non-U.S. jurisdictions, especially the European Union and the United Kingdom, have embarked on a path of greater scrutiny and regulation of digital markets. The U.S. antitrust world, as well as the wider competition policy world, now appears less stable.
For teachers, these developments present a challenge. How is it possible to teach “the law,” as it is, while also capturing the issues, debates, and challenges of the moment when the future course remains yet to be written?
With the fifth edition of Antitrust Law in Perspective, the three original authors have begun to take up that challenge. Although the overall structure of the book will be familiar to adopters, the authors have made many significant revisions to make the book more teachable, informed, and current. New material on digital markets has been added or expanded throughout, the treatment of the rule of reason post-Alston has been updated, Chapter 3 now includes a recent judicial treatment of agreement issues arising from algorithmic pricing, and Chapter 4 now includes a more in-depth treatment of the analytical challenges of the course of conduct/monopoly broth/aggregation issues that continue to arise in monopolization claims.
The Microsoft Antitrust Cases: Competition Policy for the Twenty-first Century
A comprehensive account of the decades-long, multiple antitrust actions against Microsoft and an assessment of the effectiveness of antitrust law in the digital age.
An Antitrust Anthology presents the teacher and student with an opportunity to pause and consider the development of ideas in antitrust at a number of critical junctures, with respect to many foundation principles. For the active antitrust lawyer, it constitutes a re-invitation to ponder the ideas that historically have had an enormous impact on antitrust counseling and litigating.
Harry First Liber Amicorum
Harry First Liber Amicorum: A Global Vision for Competition Law
This Liber Amicorum celebrates the remarkable career and lasting influence of Harry First-a scholar, mentor, and leader in competition law. In 21 insightful essays, distinguished academics and practitioners reflect on Harry's contributions and the pressing challenges in antitrust law and policy today. The volume begins with personal tributes, revealing Harry's role as a mensch, mentor, and visionary in the field.
Private enforcement under US antitrust law
Chapter 3: Private enforcement under US antitrust law: origins and contemporary context in Research Handbook on Private Enforcement of Competition Law in the EU
Chapter 3 provides an overview of the origins and status of the private right of action in the United States. The defining features of that right have been established since 1890 when its first iteration was included in the Sherman Act. They include recovery of treble damages and, for a prevailing plaintiff, both attorney’s fees and the costs of suit. Along with several other statutory provisions, these core characteristics were intended to incentivize private antitrust challenges so they could supplement public enforcement and provide for the compensation of victims of antitrust violations. Today’s private right of action operates, however, within the broader context of a system of civil litigation that must be understood if the private action is to be fairly assessed.
Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg and Antitrust Law's Rule(s) of Reason
Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg and Antitrust Law's Rule(s) of Reason in Douglas Ginsburg: An Antitrust Professor on the Bench, Liber Amicorum - Vol. II
This essay, written for a volume in honor of Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, explores the evolution of the rule of reason and its development into a common structured, burden shifting approach guiding judicial decisions under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act and under Section 7 of the Clayton Act. It highlights the influential role that Judge Ginsburg and the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, on which he served, played in that evolution.
Blog Posts
The Trends That Will Define US Antitrust in 2026 on ProMarket, January 15, 2026
More Heraclitus than Kuhn on ProMarket, December 5, 2024
Trinko Creep on ProMarket, July 20, 2023
Locating Competitive Process Claims in the Consumer Welfare Debate on ProMarket, April 11, 2023
Competitive Edge: The Silver Lining for Antitrust Enforcement in the Supreme Court’s Embrace of “Textualism,” on Washington Center for Equitable Growth, July 28, 2021