Lynne C. Hermle (born 1956) is an attorney specializing in employment law. She is a partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP's Menlo Park, California office. She also serves on the firm's management committee, the "first partner from the firm's Silicon Valley office to serve, and the second woman ever chosen". [1]
Hermle earned a B.A. in physical anthropology magna cum laude from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a J.D. from the University of California Hastings College of Law in 1981. She joined Orrick's San Francisco office as a senior associate in 1987 from AT&T where she handled employment matters as in-house counsel. In 1992 she became partner and in 1995 she helped open the firm's office in Menlo Park, California.
Hermle has significant experience working on complex discrimination and wage-and-hour class actions for high-profile companies including Apple, The Gap, Morgan Stanley, and others. [2]
Hermle led the trial team that defended Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in a gender discrimination lawsuit filed by Ellen Pao in San Francisco. [3] On March 27, 2015, Hermle and the Orrick trial team obtained a complete defense verdict for Kleiner Perkins in Pao v. Kleiner Perkins . Following 24 days of trial, a San Francisco jury rejected all of former partner Ellen Pao's claims that she was passed over for promotion and terminated because of her gender and complaints about discrimination. Hermle was named "Litigator of the Week" for this victory by American Lawyer which described her effective voir dire and how she "steadily poked holes in Pao's testimony." [4] The Recorder called Hermle's cross-examination "masterful" [5] and Bloomberg reported that her "charismatic, intimidating oratory made her the trial's breakout star." [6]
Hermle also obtained a defense verdict in the high-profile trial of Maghribi v. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) on behalf of AMD. Plaintiff, a senior Arab Muslim executive, sought $200 million in lost salary, bonuses and stock options and emotional distress damages, punitive damages and attorneys' fees, alleging post-September 11 discrimination. After a several-week trial, the jury returned in less than two hours with a defense verdict. [7]
She also represented all four plaintiffs in Varian v. Delfino , a SLAPP case, obtaining a verdict of more than $3.5 million on Varian's cross-claim for trade secret theft. [8] Hermle has had several other employment trial victories and she is listed in the 2005 edition of Marquis Who's Who. She also serves as an Early Neutral Evaluator for the Northern District of California and has been appointed by that court to serve as a mediator in a complex class action. [9]
Hermle has received many honors and accolades for her work as a litigator. Business Insider has described her as a "colorful character" and a "top-notch lawyer" who is "used to winning". It also recounted the fact that she had made her opponent "vomit in the courtroom". [10] The Legal 500 (US) cited Hermle as "one of the best in the field" [11] and the National Law Journal lauded her as one of America's Top 50 Women Litigators. She is also recognized as a leader in her field by Chambers USA, and Who's Who Legal, among others. [12]
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley. San Jose is Silicon Valley's largest city, the third-largest in California, and the tenth-largest in the United States; other major Silicon Valley cities include Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Redwood City, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Cupertino. The San Jose Metropolitan Area has the third-highest GDP per capita in the world, according to the Brookings Institution, and, as of June 2021, has the highest percentage of homes valued at $1 million or more in the United States.
Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneurs in over 900 ventures, including America Online, Amazon.com, Tandem Computers, Compaq, Electronic Arts, JD.com, Square, Genentech, Google, Netscape, Sun Microsystems, Nest, Palo Alto Networks, Synack, Snap, AppDynamics, and Twitter. By 2019 it had raised around $9 billion in 19 venture capital funds and four growth funds.
L. John Doerr is an American investor and venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins in Menlo Park, California. In February 2009, Doerr was appointed a member of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board to provide the President and his administration with advice and counsel in trying to fix America's economic downturn. In 2017, related to Forbes, he was recognized the 40th Richest in Tech. Forbes ranked Doerr as the 196th richest person in the world, with a net worth of US$ 9.8 billion as of April 12, 2023. Doerr is the author of Measure What Matters, a book about goal-setting, and Speed & Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now.
Orrick is an international law firm founded in San Francisco, California. The firm advises on transactions, litigation and regulatory matters for venture-backed companies, public companies, E&I funds, financial institutions and governments.
Mary Meeker is an American venture capitalist and former Wall Street securities analyst. Her primary work is on Internet and new technologies. She is the founder and general partner at BOND, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm. She previously served as partner at Kleiner Perkins.
The iFund is a US$200 million capital fund. Developers may enter into equity deals for the creation of applications, services, and components for Apple Inc.'s iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad platform. It is being offered and managed by venture capital company Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers (KPCB).
Swidler Berlin Shereff Friedman LLP was a Washington, D.C.-based law firm, itself a product of the merger between D.C. law firm Swidler & Berlin and New York City's Shereff, Friedman, Hoffman & Goodman LLP in 1998. The firm merged with Bingham McCutchen in 2006. At its height in 2005, Swidler Berlin employed some 300 attorneys with offices on D.C. K Street lobbying corridor and in New York City's iconic Chrysler Building.
Andrew Downey Orrick was a partner with Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe and the acting chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in San Francisco.
Melinda L. Haag is a San Francisco-based litigator and former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California.
The Employment Law Alliance(ELA) is an international law firm composed of management-side labor, employment and immigration lawyers, focused on employment law and immigration law related matters. Headquartered in San Francisco, ELA counts more than 3,000 lawyers in more than 100 nations, and all 50 U.S. states among its members.
Ellen Kangru Pao is an American investor and former CEO of social media company Reddit.
William Horsley Orrick III is an American lawyer and judge. A native of San Francisco, Orrick has been a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California since 2013. He had a long career as a lawyer in private practice in San Francisco, and served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice during the Obama administration.
Michael C. Geraghty is an American lawyer who served as the Attorney General of Alaska from 2012 until 2014. He was nominated for this position by Governor Sean Parnell, confirmed by the Alaska Senate and sworn in on April 10, 2012.
Lawrance A. Bohm is an American lawyer who is most noted for winning what is believed to be the two largest single-plaintiff employment verdicts in United States history: $185,872,719.52 in Juarez v. AutoZone Stores, Inc. and $167,730,488.00 in Chopourian v. Catholic Healthcare West. Bohm has won several other large verdicts protecting and defending civil and workplace rights. Bohm has represented clients in several high-profile cases.
Hong v. Facebook Inc., Anil Wilson, et al. was a gender discrimination and race discrimination lawsuit filed in 2015 by Chia Hong against her former employer, Facebook, her supervisor, and 50 others. The lawsuit was filed in San Mateo County Superior Court by attorneys Lawless & Lawless.
Ellen Pao v. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers LLC and DOES 1-20 is a lawsuit filed in 2012 in San Francisco County Superior Court under the law of California by executive Ellen Pao for gender discrimination against her employer, the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. Overlapping with a number of studies condemning the representation of women in venture capital, the case was followed closely by reporters, advocacy groups and Silicon Valley executives. Given the tendency for similar cases to reach settlements out of court, coverage of Pao v. Kleiner Perkins described it as a landmark trial once it began in February 2015. On March 27, 2015 the jury found in favor of Kleiner Perkins on all counts.
Women in venture capital or VC are investors who provide venture capital funding to startups. Women make up a small fraction of the venture capital private equity workforce. A widely used source for tracking the number of women in venture capital is the Midas List which has been published by Forbes since 2001. Research from Women in VC, a global community of women venture investors, shows that the percentage of female VC partners is just shy of 5 percent.
McGregor "Greg" William Scott is an American lawyer and partner at the King & Spalding law firm. He served as the United States attorney for the Eastern District of California from 2017 to 2021. He was sworn in as a court-appointed U.S. attorney on December 29, 2017, after previously serving in the position from 2003 to 2009 during the administration of George W. Bush. Prior to assuming his current role, Scott was a partner in the Sacramento office of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, where his practice focused on white collar criminal defense and corporate investigations. In 2008, he retired from the United States Army Reserve as a lieutenant colonel after 23 years of service.
Lorraine S. McGowen is an American lawyer. She is the lead restructuring partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in the New York office. McGowen works with financial institutions, lender groups and creditor committees who want to maximize recoveries in complicated bankruptcies, out-of-court restructurings and rights controversies. She also works with investors and acquirers of distressed companies. McGowen is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation.
Shannon Liss-Riordan is an American labor attorney. She is best known for her class-action cases against companies such as Uber, FedEx, and Starbucks. Liss-Riordan was a candidate in the 2020 United States Senate election in Massachusetts, unsuccessfully challenging incumbent Ed Markey for his senate seat.