Tyler Meade

Tyler Meade brings thirty years of diverse experience to mediation and arbitration.

Started as a Prosecutor: Tyler began his career in 1993 as a Deputy Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the California Attorney General’s Office. He spent six years in the San Francisco office training on a blend of trial and appellate work. He investigated and prosecuted financial crimes, and defended criminal convictions in the California Courts of Appeal.

Early Civil Work: Tyler turned to civil practice in 1998. Over the next few years, he was part of the defense team in a civil RICO class action that settled for $330 million, and was part of the plaintiffs’ steering committee in a mass tort case.

The Meade Firm: Tyler founded his own civil litigation firm in 2004. For two decades, he represented plaintiffs and defendants in high value contract disputes, civil RICO and securities fraud cases, class actions, unfair competition cases, large cases involving condominiums and fractional properties, and disputes involving technology companies.

General Counsel: Tyler is Chief Legal Officer of Gemini, which operates licensed, fully regulated digital asset exchanges in North America and Europe and serves users around the world. In addition, Gemini is a digital asset custodian, including for exchange traded funds and other institutional users through its New York-based limited purpose trust company, Gemini Trust Company, LLC.

Experience Around the Country and World: Admitted to practice in California and New York, Tyler has handled cases in New York, Massachusetts, Delaware, Florida, Colorado, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and throughout California. As Chief Legal Officer of Gemini, Tyler oversees complex matters around the world.

Associations: Tyler is a member of the Silicon Valley Arbitration and Mediation Center, the Southern California Mediation Association, and the ADR sections of the American Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association, and the San Francisco Bar Association.

Service to Courts: Tyler is active on the mediation panels for multiple state and federal courts in California and New York, and serves a judge pro tem.

Articles:

Education and Mediation Training:

  • Education: Tyler earned his B.A. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1989, and his J.D. from the University of California College of Law, San Francisco in 1992 (f.k.a. Hastings College of Law).

  • Mediation Training: Tyler has studied mediation at the Harvard Program on Negotiation, Cornell University, and Pepperdine Law School, among other programs.

Litigation Achievements:

  • $51 Million Class Action Settlement: Tyler obtained a $51 million class action settlement in a hotel-condominium case in San Diego after prevailing on summary judgment.

  • Notable Defense-Side Win: On the defense side, Tyler obtained summary judgment of all claims alleged against high-profile defendants in a multimillion dollar business dispute in Boston.

Recognition:

  • The James Madison Freedom of Information Award: In 2022, the Society of Professional Journalists gave this award to Tyler for his firm’s work in public record act cases.

  • National Law Journal Top Verdicts of 2009: Tyler was co-lead trial counsel in a class action trial in 2009 that resulted in a $27 million judgment.

Admissions:

  • California: California, 1992; Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, 2012; Northern District of California, 1992; Eastern District of California, 2001; Southern District of California, 2011; Central District of California, 2011.

  • New York: New York, 2015; Second Circuit Court of Appeals, 2020; Southern District of New York, 2016; Eastern District of New York, 2016.

  • Other: U.S. Supreme Court, 2014; District of Colorado, 2016.

Nonprofit Work: Tyler is a founding board member of the Ocean Genome Atlas Project (OGAP), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit formed by a group of sailors and scientists to create a genomic atlas of the world’s oceans at single-cell resolution. OGAP deploys mobile labs on new, cost-effective platforms, including retrofitted sailboats and even a Mercedes Sprinter van. OGAP has explored 15,000 nautical miles in the Pacific and Atlantic, and was named an Ocean Shot Project by the US National Academy of Sciences as part of the UN Ocean Decade initiative.

Personal: An open water swimmer and member of San Francisco’s Dolphin Club, Tyler is passionate about all things aquatic. He has sailed the San Francisco Bay since childhood and logged thousands of ocean miles. Tyler splits his time between San Francisco and New York.

Click here for a PDF of Tyler’s bio.