Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati hired Susan Kay Leader as a litigation partner in Los Angeles as the firm focuses on adding lawyers with trial experience.
Leader, who joins the firm from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, has litigated commercial cases and class-action lawsuits. She has first-chair experience in more than a dozen trials and arbitrations, according to a Wilson Sonsini statement.
Her previous clients include Alta Investment Group and DirecTV, which she defended in a slew of recent wage and hour cases, according to a review of the Bloomberg Law docket database.
Leader’s hire is the latest in a series of moves by Wilson Sonsini to strengthen its trial and commercial litigation practice.
Last month the firm hired trial lawyer Amy Candido from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Lonergan, according to the firm’s website.
The firm provides legal services and advice to technology, life sciences, and growth enterprise clients internationally. It reported $1.1 billion in gross revenue to the American Lawyer in 2020, ranking in the top 40 largest firms in the country, and has over 200 litigators.
“Susan’s talents and accomplishments as a first-chair trial lawyer have helped her build an impressive practice,” said Doug Clark, Wilson Sonsini managing partner, in the statement.
The opportunity to help the firm become a destination for commercial litigation with a deep bench of first-chair trial lawyers is especially exciting, Leader said.
“Wilson’s clients are in tech, life sciences and other industries,” Leader said in an interview. “They need trial lawyers because these aren’t going to be cookie-cutter issues. They’re going to be issues that are precedent setting, issues that are exciting for me as a trial lawyer.”
Google and YouTube recently hired Wilson Sonsini in their defense against former President Donald Trump’s First Amendment lawsuit over his suspension from various social media platforms. It’s one of a series of Big Law firms that recently shifted return-to-office plans from October to early next year, citing concerns about the delta variant of COVID-19.
To contact the correspondent on this story: Dan Papscun at danielpapscun@gmail.com
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