M.C. Sungaila has briefed and argued appeals raising cutting-edge and core business issues, and helped secure important rights for women and girls nationally and internationally. Clients call on her to craft approaches to emerging legal issues across multiple cases and jurisdictions and to provide pretrial and trial consultations in cases where an appeal by either side appears inevitable or a “key case” outcome might impact a whole series of cases for a client.
At the core of her broad appellate practice is M.C.’s passion for the rule of law and for helping shape undeveloped areas within it. Her work has helped to:
Preserve the attorney-client privilege
Develop the standards for the admission of expert testimony
Determine limits to the reach of class actions and securities laws
Extend the assumption of the risk doctrine
Develop rules for preventing compelled speech under the First Amendment
Define the scope of the duty to warn sophisticated users of product hazards
Limit the reach of medical monitoring claims
Clarify the standards for interstate enforcement of non-compete agreements
Secure important rights for women worldwide
Reverse significant judgments for clients
Limit franchisor liability for the acts of franchisee employees
Define the scope of the Establishment Clause under the California Constitution and preserve a public school yoga physical education program
M.C. has repeatedly been named a “Notable Appellate Practitioner” by Chambers USA, Chambers & Partners (2013-2015). Clients describe her in one Chambers listing as a “gifted appellate lawyer who consistently delivers bottom line results” and praise her for her “great practical sense,” “laser” focus on key issues, and ability to “advise on the business side just as well as she does on the legal side.” She has been repeatedly recognized by the Daily Journal, Daily Journal Corporation as one of California’s 100 Leading Women Lawyers (2005, 2010-2015) and in 2015 as one of the state’s Top Labor & Employment Lawyers, and was a recipient of a 2015 California Lawyer of the Year (CLAY) award from California Lawyer magazine, Daily Journal Corporation for the precedent setting franchisor vicarious liability case she argued before the California Supreme Court, Patterson v. Domino’s Pizza.
