Law360 has published an in-depth profile on Lieff Cabraser partners Kelly Dermody and Anne Shaver, named Employment Law “MVPs of the Year” for 2023 for their instrumental roles in securing two major gender discrimination settlements against corporate giants Google and Goldman Sachs.
In Goldman, Dermody and Shaver spearheaded the landmark $215 million deal, announced in May 2023, which ended a long-standing gender discrimination class action against the investment bank. Historic for multiple reasons, the settlement is one of the largest discrimination settlements in U.S. history, and is the single-largest gender bias settlement that has occurred in advance of employees winning their case at trial. It is also the third-largest gender bias settlement of any kind on record, and is nearly five times larger than the next-largest gender bias class action settlement involving a Wall Street firm.
Just one month later, in June, Google agreed to a $118 million settlement to resolve a five-year dispute over allegations of underpaying over 15,000 women working in California.
Dermody and Shaver both identified the Goldman Sachs settlement as the pinnacle of their achievements in the past year, noting it was a career milestone as well. The settlement agreement, which ended over a decade of litigation alleging the financial giant engaged in systemic and pervasive pay and promotion discrimination against its female employees, was announced just weeks before the case was set to go to trial.
“It’s a career case, to have a case that has gone on so long, it was so hard fought,” Dermody said. “I can’t think of another litigation I’ve been in that was so hard fought, and there’s a stiff competition for that designation.”
Shaver also said the Goldman Sachs class action was one of the first cases she worked on after joining Lieff Cabraser, and that “to finally have this case come full circle is really meaningful to me.”
“We’d been litigating the case for over 13 years, and we were headed to trial this year, so to finally have resolved that case is very, very significant,” Shaver said.
Read Law360′s full profile of Kelly and Anne.
About Kelly M. Dermody
The Managing Partner of Lieff Cabraser’s San Francisco office, Kelly M. Dermody specializes in class and collective actions on behalf of plaintiffs in civil rights, employment, and consumer cases, including gender discrimination cases against Google and Goldman Sachs. Kelly was also named a 2023 Law360 MVP in the category of Class Action and Employment Law. Additional case work includes wage suppression claims against technology, healthcare, and academic institutions; overtime and lost pay lawsuits for low-wage workers, I/T professionals, and foreign nationals working for American corporations; and ERISA claims that she has tried on behalf of employees and retirees for pension plan abuses. She also leads Lieff Cabraser’s representation of women who allege their ovarian and uterine cancer was caused by long-term use of dangerous hair relaxer products. In 2020, Kelly led the team that successfully challenged the Trump Administration’s improper withholding of CARES Act stimulus funds from incarcerated Americans, leading to the release and distribution of $1.5 billion in stimulus funds, in what may be the single largest recovery for a targeted class from a single lawsuit in history.
About Anne Shaver
Anne Shaver is a partner in Lieff Cabraser’s San Francisco office with a practice focusing on employment law cases. She has taken a leading role in gender class action lawsuits that challenge business practices and work cultures at some of the largest and most powerful companies in the world, including Google, Goldman Sachs, and KPMG. Her passion for upholding worker rights has most recently been focused on gender discrimination “impact litigation,” where she represents clients seeking to alter core business practices in ways that transform not just individual companies, but entire industries.
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