Google Gender Case

Result: $118 million settlement
Year: 2022

Ellis v. Google, LLC

In October 2022, a California Superior Court judge granted final approval to a $118 million settlement of litigation brought on behalf of over 15,000 female Google workers who alleged the tech giant engaged in systemic and pervasive pay and promotion discrimination since 2013 against its female software engineers. Filed by Lieff Cabraser and co-counsel in 2017 under California’s then-newly amended Equal Pay law, the Google Gender Discrimination class action broke new ground in tech employment law as it addressed two pernicious and long-standing practices, the under-leveling of women relative to comparable men at hire, and using candidates’ past salary information to determine their pay rate, the latter a process that perpetuated inequity as women on average have historically been paid significantly less than men.