Sanjukta M. Paul is a 2003 graduate of Yale Law School, where she served as a legal writing instructor and as co-chair of the Workers’ Rights Project. She is admitted to practice in all the state courts of California; in the U.S. District Courts for the Central and Southern Districtsof California; and in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She served as a judicial clerk to the Honorable Alfred T. Goodwin on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Ms. Paul has litigated numerous employment matters on behalf of plaintiffs, on many of which she has served as lead counsel or co-lead counsel. She has had primary or lead responsibility for cases at every stage and procedural posture: from intake and pre-litigation negotiation, to preparing civil complaints, to conducting extensive and complex discovery, to opposing summary judgment, to trial preparation, to mediation, to trial, to appeal. She has extensive deposition experience, including taking numerous depositions of defendants and key corporate and government decision-makers, and has defended dozens of depositions of plaintiffs. She has second-chaired a federal trial, argued numerous motions in state and federal court, and handled complex appeals. She has successfully represented employees as lead/solo counsel at several binding arbitrations, and managed numerous employment and civil rights cases (including supervising associates and law clerks, and coordinating teams of attorneys).
Ms. Paul has successfully litigated significant matters involving, for example: various types of employment discrimination under the Fair Employment and Housing Act, Title VII, and related statutes (such as pregnancy discrimination, race discrimination, and leave rights); whistle- blower retaliation under the Labor Code, California False Claims Act, and related statutes; and minimum wage and overtime compensation violations. Many of these matters involved novel or creative legal theories.
Ms. Paul has represented a wide range of clients –low-wage workers in various industries, whistle-blowers, salespeople, political protesters, jail inmates, teachers, wait-staff, high-level government administrators, entertainment industry professionals– in civil rights and employment rights matters. Prior to practicing law, Ms. Paul held a variety of jobs herself, from food service to retail to teaching, a fact which informs her practice as an employment lawyer and in representing a diversity of clientele. Ms. Paul has also advised selected small businesses, small business associations, and non-profit organizations on commercial and employment matters.
Significant matters in which she had or has a primary role include:
Paige v. State of California, No. 05-56061/05-56064 (2005) (complex Ninth Circuit appeal in employment discrimination class action)
Nelson v. NASA, 506 F.3d 713 (9th Cir. 2007 (successful motions for emergency stay and injunction pending appeal, in multiple plaintiff civil rights case on behalf of employees of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory involving federal constitutional issues of first impression)
Gonzalez v. City of Los Angeles, No. 09K08485 (2009) (co-lead counsel, with UCLA law professor Ingrid Eagly, in litigation leading to Los Angeles Superior Court decision striking down as facially invalid a municipal ordinance that unfairly targeted Latino mobile food vendors)
National Day Laborer Organizing Network v. Baca (currently pending) (lead counsel in recently-filed litigation to uncover public records relating to the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department’s collaboration with federal authorities in immigration enforcement.)
Ms. Paul regularly contributes invited presentations and written pieces on employment law and civil rights matters to local bar associations, law schools, unions, and other groups.
Examples include:
• Presenter on employee leaves of absence at the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s continuing legal education seminar “From Hiring to Firing: The Nuts and Bolts of Employment Law” (December, 2009);
• “Civil Rights Careers,” Loyola Law School (Spring 2010)
• “Sexual Orientation Discrimination and Beyond: Workers’ Rights to be Free from Employer- Enforced Concepts of Gender and Sexuality,” California Employment Lawyers Association annual conference (October, 2010)
• “Introduction to Employment Discrimination Law,” California Teachers Association Summer Institute (August 2011).
• “Letter to a Young Public Interest Attorney,” Los Angeles Public Interest Law Journal (forthcoming.)
Copyright 2009 Sanjukta M. Paul, All rights reserved.
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