Fourth Annual "celebrating Women in Competition Law in California"

• Jurisdiction: California,United States
• Publication year: 2020
• Citation: Vol. 30 No. 2

FOURTH ANNUAL "CELEBRATING WOMEN IN COMPETITION LAW IN CALIFORNIA"

Women's entry and rising representation in the legal profession is viewed by some to be one of the most remarkable, "revolutionary" changes to the legal profession. Today, more than ever before in our profession, women have become accomplished litigators, inspirational leaders, and generous mentors. Yet there is still a persistent, large, and unexplained gap between the earnings of men and women law school graduates and a perceived absence of women lawyers in top-level positions and in courtrooms. In March of this year, the Section hosted its fourth annual flagship program focusing on women practitioners in competition law and celebrated the exceptional progress women have made in the pursuit of their careers by overcoming a multitude of obstacles. The panelists shared their invaluable experience and advice about business development, mentoring, and making a difference within the legal profession. We reprise the program below.

PANELISTS

The Honorable Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers was appointed to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in 2011. Judge Gonzalez Rogers joined the federal bench from the superior court in Alameda County, where she had served from 2008 to 2011, presiding over both criminal and civil cases. Judge Gonzalez Rogers earned her undergraduate degree from Princeton University in 1987 and her law degree from the University of Texas in 1991. After graduating from law school, Judge Gonzalez Rogers practiced civil litigation with the law firm of Cooley Godward LLP in San Francisco from 1991 to 2003 where she was elected an equity partner, and served the superior court in several capacities including judge pro tem until her appointment to the bench in 2008. In her capacity as both a state and federal judge, she has presided over thousands of civil and criminal cases, including a number of high-profile antitrust matters and over a hundred trials.

Paula Blizzard is currently a Deputy Attorney General in the California Attorney General's Antitrust Section. She has been with the Attorney General's office for almost three years, and most recently led the state lawsuit to block the Sprint—Mobile merger. Previously she was at the Federal Communications Commission from 2014-2016, and a partner at Keker, Van Nest & Peters from 2004-2014. She began her legal career at the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division. Prior to becoming a lawyer, she worked for eight years as an aerospace consultant, designing communications systems and working on the space station program for NASA. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley School of Law and MIT.

Amy T. Brantly is the managing partner of Kesselman Brantly Stockinger LLP, a boutique litigation firm specializing in antitrust and unfair competition. Ms. Brantly has significant experience in a range of complex litigation cases, including antitrust, fraud, trade secrets, breach of fiduciary duty, and class actions. Before co-founding Kesselman Brantly Stockinger, Ms. Brantly was an attorney at Susman Godfrey LLP, where she worked on some of the biggest antitrust cases in the country as well as numerous class actions. Her antitrust experience includes litigating group boycott cases, exclusionary contracting practices, price fixing, and bid-rigging involving numerous markets, including cosmetics, semiconductors, medical devices, insurance, and sports.

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Jackie Lem is an assistant chief in the San Francisco office of the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division. She has worked on both criminal and civil antitrust matters. Jackie has led multiple international cartel investigations including electrolytic capacitors and aftermarket auto-lights. She has also participated in civil merger and conduct investigations. Before joining the Justice Department through the Attorney General's Honors Program, Jackie served as a law clerk to the Honorable Marilyn Hall Patel, United States District Court for the Northern District of California. She received a JD from Stanford Law School, a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and BA and BS degrees from the University of Texas at Austin.

Judith A. Zahid is Managing Partner of the San Francisco office of Zelle LLP and is co-chair of the firm's Antitrust group. Judith's practice is focused on assessing complex antitrust claims and pursuing recoveries on behalf of both individual corporate clients and class plaintiffs in many different industries. She has represented plaintiffs in numerous high-stakes price-fixing and monopolization cases, with recoveries from those cases totaling well over $2 billion. While Judith is involved in all aspects of the cases she litigates, she places particular emphasis on her work with industry and damages experts.

JUDGE YVONNE GONZALEZ ROGERS:

Good evening, everyone. I'm delighted to be here. I too, like some of us in this room, am currently in trial and managing lots of different things.

But it occurred to me what would be a good evening for all of you. So here's a thought. If you can leave this room with one practical tool for doing things better and leave with one card—I was going to say card, but I don't know these days with Facebook and other stuff where it's all electronic—so some new contact, and feeling energized, then tonight's a good night. And I too want to thank all the sponsors and especially the panelists who are going to share with you. That's the goal.

This is an issue that is very near and dear to my heart. Anytime someone asks me to do these kinds of panels I do, because I think it is so important. When I was at the firm, I was the first Latina ever hired. We have come a long way but there is a long way still to go.

Those of us and those around this table who have succeeded have lots of great tips for you. And I certainly feel like my role on the bench is to push the envelope. And I have, as I think people can attest.

In the Batteries case, when I got nothing but men up at the podium and I finally was kind of tired of it, I said, "Where are the women?" Now, many judges won't do that. But I did. And I tell you, the next hearing I only had women at the podium. And it was great.

So I'm glad to push the envelope. Because if we don't, and we don't support each other, and if we don't teach each other, and if we don't hire each other, then things won't change. So it's all within our power. So I'm so excited to be here.

We have decided not to do too much in terms of formality. We really want to get to the substance of all of this. So I'm going to ask each of the panelists to introduce themselves. But rather than just kind of giving us the basics, tell us something about your leadership style, or maybe something that you're really proud of that you did. So Judith, can you start us off?

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MS. ZAHID:

Sure. I'm Judith Zahid. I'm the managing partner at Zelle LLP in San Francisco. I grew up in the plaintiffs' antitrust bar. Something that I'm proud of is that we had a changing of the guard at our firm and there was a lot of space left when our senior partners moved on. I sort of filled the space with hesitation and feeling I was too young to be doing it. I just sort of buckled down and said, "I'm just going to do what I've got to do each day. And I can always jump ship and go somewhere else and beg someone for a job." But I'm just like, why not? Just do it. And I thought, if I just do this I'll improve myself. If I just do that I'll improve myself.

And finally I woke up one day, and whether it was worth it or not, I just was like, I don't have to prove myself anymore. It's not that I reached some maximum place. It was just I was exhausted from the desperation of having to prove myself. And so for those who still feel like they are doing that every single day, it's just to let that go, I think, has been a proud moment for me to realize that I have.

JUDGE GONZALEZ ROGERS:

Very important. By the way, judges feel that way, too.

MS. BRANTLY:

Hi, I'm Amy Brantly. I'm the managing partner of a small firm. We have about ten lawyers, five partners. And I'm the only female partner in my firm. We only have one other woman litigator. So I come from a male-dominated firm, like most of you probably do, too.

I guess a problem for me, because I'm a trial litigator, is we were hired to do an appeal before the Hawaii Supreme Court. The trial court had kicked the case out on summary judgment and the court of appeal affirmed. And I was really intimidated by this assignment because I'm not an appellate lawyer.

But I loved it. The Hawaii Supreme Court allowed 20 minutes for argument. I got to argue...