COMPLEX APPELLATE LITIGATION GROUP - Key Persons
Ben Feuer is the chairman of the firm and one of the "top appellate litigators in California," according to a national news network.
Ben regularly represents large and small businesses, individuals, and associations in the California appellate courts, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He leads and consults on high-stakes appeals and writs, including bet-the-company commercial disputes, multimillion-dollar tort actions, major real estate controversies, high-net worth family law litigation, and novel constitutional law challenges.
He has received numerous awards for his successes.
The National Law Journal called Ben an "Elite Boutique Trailblazer," the Daily Journal named him one of the "Top 40 Lawyers Under 40" in California, Benchmark Litigation twice included him on its "40 & Under Hot List," and the Bar Association of San Francisco awarded him its "Outstanding Barrister" prize. Super Lawyers has listed him every year for more than a decade. In 2016, the Minority Bar Council of San Francisco presented Ben with its "Unity Award," for "outstanding commitment to diversity in the legal profession."
Ben previously led the Appellate Section of the Bar Association of San Francisco.
He served as co-chair from 2017-2020, and remains on the section's executive committee. Over the years, Ben has organized, moderated, and spoken on more than fifty panels with appellate judges, practitioners, and professors on topics related to appellate practice and constitutional theory.
Ben served as an Appellate Lawyer Representative to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, one of a handful of attorneys from across the court's 11-state jurisdiction personally selected for the role by the court's judges. He is currently a member of the Advisory Board to the Ninth Judicial Circuit Historical Society. Ben also served on the Board of Directors of the Bar Association of San Francisco's Barristers Club and on the advisory board to OneJustice, an organization that supports California legal nonprofit groups.
Ben is CALG's chairman and an acclaimed expert on appeals.
Charles Kagay has decades of appellate experience in both California and federal courts.
He frequently handles appeals involving complex or novel legal questions, and his cases have addressed first-impression questions of civil procedure and statutory interpretation, including issues related to antitrust law, administrative law, physician credentialing, and anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) motions. He also handles trial court actions of an appellate nature, such as petitions for writs of administrative mandamus and bankruptcy appeals.
He has been certified as California appellate specialist by the Board of Legal Specialization of the State Bar of California for well over a decade.
He has been selected ten times as a "Northern California SuperLawyer" in appellate law, and he has both a peer rating and client rating of 5 out of 5 from Martindale-Hubbell.
Previously, Charles served as Chief Appellate Counsel in two Independent Counsel probes of cabinet-level officials in Washington, D.C.
He also acted as a Deputy Attorney General for the State of California. Charles is a past member of the State Bar of California's Committee on Appellate Courts, Committee on the Administration of Justice, and Antitrust and Unfair Competition Section's Executive Committee.
He holds three degrees from Harvard University.
He earned his law degree, his graduate degree in public policy, and his undergraduate degrees there.
Job Titles:
- Counsel
- Member of the State Bar 's Judicial Nominees Evaluation Commission
Claudia Ribet is one of only four attorneys in California recognized by the State Bar as a certified specialist in both appellate law and family law.
Claudia has been a member of the State Bar's Judicial Nominees Evaluation Commission (the "JNE Commission") and, for many years was Chair of the Los Angeles County Bar Association's State Appellate Judicial Evaluation Committee ("SAJEC"). She is a Fellow of both the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and the International Academy of Family Lawyers.
Claudia is one of the top family law appellate specialists in Los Angeles.
Greg Wolff has more behind-the-scenes experience with the California Supreme Court than virtually any other private practitioner in the state.
Greg spent nearly three decades in the chambers of four different California Supreme Court justices, analyzing thousands of petitions for review, evaluating hundreds of Supreme Court briefs, and helping the justices draft scores of opinions and orders. He served as a Senior Judicial Attorney for retired Chief Justice Ron George for 10 years, the Head of Chambers for Justice Carlos Moreno for 10 years, the same role for Justice Goodwin Liu for 3 years, and then again for Justice Leondra Kruger for 4 years. All told, over 27 years, Greg gained deep insight into how the Court functions as an institution and how its individual justices reach decisions - along with how best to persuade them. Greg also served for four years as a research attorney at the California Court of Appeal.
He also was on the Board of Directors of the Marin County Bar Association. Greg is a graduate of Southwestern Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review. He received his bachelor's degree in political science from UCLA.
Jennifer Teaford has advised judges on the disposition of hundreds of appeals, appellate motions, and requests for interlocutory appellate relief.
She previously served as an Assistant Chief Court Counsel for the California State Bar Appellate Court and also as a Staff Attorney for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In those roles, she has developed an intense awareness of how appellate judges of all types make decisions.
While serving as counsel to the State Bar Court's appellate division, she gained extensive experience in attorney discipline matters at the appellate stage.
Jennifer analyzed dozens of attorney discipline appeals, learning the unique rules and processes which govern them, and helped the State Bar Court's appellate judges draft numerous published and unpublished opinions. In her time there, Jennifer excelled and was promoted to a leadership position with the State Bar Court, and made a member of the State Bar's Executive Team.
Jennifer also spent five years as a staff attorney on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
There, she acquired behind-the-scenes insight into the Ninth Circuit's practices and procedures. She also practiced high-stakes litigation with Farella, Braun + Martel LLP in San Francisco.
Jennifer earned her law degree from Berkeley Law, where she served as a Senior Articles Editor on the California Law Review.
She also interned in the Civil Division of the Office of the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California. Jennifer earned her undergraduate degree in English from Stanford University, and worked in book publishing before law school.
Job Titles:
- Counsel
- S Pro Bono Work Has Met With Similar Levels of Success
- S Substantive Appellate Experience Covers a Vast Range of Subjects
Jessica Weisel has more than 20 years of experience handling must-win civil appeals, writs, and trial court motions for businesses and individuals.
She has litigated in nearly every federal circuit Court of Appeals and has extensive experience in the California Supreme Court and California Court of Appeal.
Jessica's substantive appellate experience covers a vast range of subjects.
She recently obtained reversals of a $19 million wrongful termination judgment in an employment suit, a $27 million judgment for defamation and violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and a large attorneys' fees award in the California Court of Appeal. She also won affirmance of a summary judgment on class action claims in meal and rest break litigation, favorable rulings in two First Amendment challenges to a transport agency's advertising policy, and represented a major chain of retail stores in obtaining a peremptory writ of mandate reversing an order certifying a class of assistant store managers. Additionally, Jessica has prevailed in numerous cases and appeals involving California's anti-SLAPP statute, and has significant experience with copyright, false advertising, unfair competition, defamation, employment, fraud, and breach of contract matters.
Jessica's pro bono work has met with similar levels of success.
The U.S. Supreme Court cited an amicus curiae brief she authored in its majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, the decision establishing marriage equality. Jessica also represented plaintiffs who successfully challenged Texas's law prohibiting same-sex marriage in the district court and Fifth Circuit, and recently won a writ from the California Court of Appeal establishing the obligation of trial courts to issue findings necessary for immigrants seeking special immigration juvenile status. Jessica has represented amici curiae in pro bono challenges to the Trump administration's Travel Ban, its rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals ("DACA") policy, and its policy permitting state and local governments to opt out of refugee resettlement. She has worked on pro bono amicus briefs with the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, Public Counsel, Lambda Legal, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Jessica has been named a Super Lawyers "Rising Star" in appellate law five times.
She has also been honored by Equality Texas for her work on LGBTQ matters. In 2020, she received Public Counsel's 2020 Pro Bono Award for her work on immigration appeals.
Prior to joining CALG, Jessica practiced for decades with the nationally recognized appellate team at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.
While she was with Akin, the firm's appellate group was repeatedly named to the National Law Journal's "Appellate Hot List," along with other recognition.
Jessica graduated from Yale Law School, where she was a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal.
She received her undergraduate degree, with honors, from Grinnell College in Iowa.
Johanna Schiavoni is certified as a specialist in appellate law by the State Bar of California and has nearly two decades of appellate experience.
She has argued more than 35 cases in the state and federal appellate courts, and has been the principal brief-writer in at least 90.
Johanna was the 2020 President of the San Diego County Bar Association, which serves nearly 10,000 members of the San Diego legal community.
Johanna is a 2002 graduate of the UCLA School of Law, and a 1998 graduate of Washington University in St. Louis.
Julia Partridge is a true insider on the California appellate courts.
She spent five years as a chambers attorney for Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar on the California Supreme Court, and before then, 25 years as a research attorney with the California Court of Appeal for the First Appellate District, initially for Justice Norman Elkington, and upon his retirement, for Justice William Stein.
Julia was a longtime California Supreme Court chambers attorney.
For more than a dozen years, Katy Graham worked closely with renowned justices in the California Court of Appeal's Second District.
As a research attorney for Presiding Justice Arthur Gilbert and others, she helped analyze, decide, and draft opinions in hundreds of civil and criminal appeals. She delved into dozens of areas of substantive law, including environmental law, class actions, Proposition 218 cases, land use and eminent domain litigation, employment disputes, unfair competition suits, construction defect claims, arbitrability questions, and probate and family law appeals. Before joining the Court of Appeal, Katy served for six years as a research attorney in the Santa Barbara Superior Court, where she drafted tentative decisions for law and motion calendars in civil, probate, and family court, and provided legal analysis and advice to the judges hearing complex trials.
Prior to that, she was a litigator for a respected Los Angeles trial boutique.
While there, her firm was selected by the National Law Journal for "Top 10" verdicts in both plaintiff- and defense-side litigation. She tried cases in federal and state courts with an emphasis on environmental law and tribal law, and also handled securities, insurance, legal malpractice, and personal injury litigation.
Katy served as Chair of the Advisory Committee on Appellate Courts for the California Lawyers Association Litigation Section.
She remains an adviser to that Committee, and is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Litigation Section, as well as a member of its Committee on Racial Justice. She teaches continuing education courses to practitioners, court attorneys, judges, and appellate court justices on the topics of legal writing, dispositions, statutory interpretation, and appellate advocacy. Katy has presented at the California State Bar annual conference, the Appellate Justices Institute, and the Appellate Judicial Attorneys Institute, among other forums, and she's also been a delegate to the Conference of California Bar Associations and a director and officer of the Santa Barbara County Bar Association.
Katy earned her law degree from the Santa Barbara College of Law, where she routinely earned the highest grade in her class.
She was also and was president of the Student Bar Association. Katy returned to the school after graduation to teach legal writing, as well as courses on appellate advocacy and professional responsibility. Katy earned her bachelor's degree from Humboldt State University.
Katy is a former research attorney in the California Court of Appeal.
Kelly Woodruff has more than 30 years of experience handling significant appeals and writs in state and federal appellate courts.
She represents both businesses and individuals, and her practice spans nearly all subject areas, including breach of contract and other commercial disputes, family law, intellectual property, real estate, antitrust, and trust and estate litigation. It often involves cutting-edge issues of first impression.
Kelly is certified by the California State Bar as an appellate law specialist.
In addition to appeals and writs, she is often retained to write amicus briefs to ensure her clients' voices are heard in cases where they are not otherwise participating.
She often works with trial counsel to prepare more effective motions, preserve issues for appeal, and strategize on appellate impacts for clients.
Kelly also has experience assisting trial counsel in securing writs to obtain interlocutory review of orders before final judgment or to stay a damaging order pending full appeal.
Kelly was named one of the Top Women Lawyers in California by the Daily Journal.
She has been repeatedly named a Northern California Super Lawyer for appellate law as well, and listed in Best Lawyers in America in the areas of Appellate Practice and Commercial Litigation.
She is committed to giving back to the community.
Kelly was named by California Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye to the Appellate Caseflow Workgroup led by First District Presiding Justice Jim Humes to study and recommend solutions to systemic delays impacting the speedy resolution of appeals in some of California's appellate courts. She is also currently serving as the Vice Chair of the California Lawyers Association Litigation Section's Committee on Appellate Courts and will be the Chair in the 2022-2023 fiscal year. She was Co-Chair of the Bar Association of San Francisco's Appellate Section from 2017-2020 and continues to serve on the Executive Committee of the Section. She is also on the University of California Hastings College of the Law Board of Governors and is Co-Chair of the San Francisco Chapter of the Hastings Alumni Association. In addition, Kelly acts as a panel attorney representing indigent criminal defendants in their appeals, and she has succeeded in overturning death sentences in two capital cases.
Kelly graduated magna cum laude from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, and clerked on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
She received numerous awards for her law school academic achievements and served as Senior Executive Editor for the Hastings Law Journal. After graduating, she clerked for James R. Browning of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and David A. Ezra of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii.
Kirstin Ault spent more than a decade handling criminal appeals for the federal government.
Kirstin has over 20 years of appellate experience, and has litigated more than 50 appeals before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She spent 15 of those years with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California, where her work included, along with direct criminal appeals, challenges to sentencing, restitution orders, and conditions of supervised release and probation, as well as interlocutory appeals challenging bail conditions and rulings on trial motions.
She has special expertise in constitutional challenges to criminal convictions and statutory interpretation.
As the Supreme Court's jurisprudence on the vagueness doctrine evolved to impact a variety of criminal and immigration statutes, Kirstin coordinated with other offices in the Ninth Circuit and the U.S. Department of Justice to develop a coherent strategy for adapting to a rapidly changing area of constitutional law. Kirstin also served in the U.S. Attorney's Office's Economic Crimes and Securities Fraud section where, as Health Care Fraud Coordinator, she oversaw the Northern District's health care fraud litigation and handled a variety of white-collar cases.
Kirstin has also tried over 20 federal jury trials, and brings that trial strategy and motions experience to benefit her consulting and appellate clients.
Kirstin was recognized as one of the Top 100 Lawyers in California by the California Daily Journal in 2014. She received the Executive Office of United States Attorneys Director's Award in 2016. She currently serves on the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles Amicus Committee and the Women's White Collar Defense Association Small Firms Initiative Committee.
Kirstin is an Adjunct Professor at UC Hastings, College of the Law, where she teaches Corporate Crime and Regulation.
Since 2016, Kirstin has regularly served as an instructor for Stanford's Trial Advocacy seminar and moot court competitions. Kirstin graduated from Stanford Law School in 1999 and clerked for the Honorable Joel Flaum on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Melanie Gold spent more than three decades as a research attorney for California appellate courts.
She primarily worked with the justices of the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Diego, but also with those of the Sixth District Court of Appeal in San Jose as well as the California Supreme Court in San Francisco. During that time, Melanie analyzed thousands of briefs, motions, and petitions, advised justices on hundreds of appeals, and developed a deep understanding of how appellate courts actually decide cases. Her experience helping justices to draft nearly a thousand opinions gives Melanie acute skill in identifying and crafting the appellate arguments most likely to succeed.
She focused mainly on civil appeals during her years with the Court of Appeal.
The appeals Melanie helped the justices decide significantly impacted the law governing anti-SLAPP, real property, employment, arbitration, class action, attorney fee, and public entity lawsuits. She worked on hundreds of appeals with intricate questions of statutory interpretation and complex procedural issues, and scores raising novel legal questions. She spent much of her time on the Court of Appeal as the lead attorney in the chambers of of the Fourth District.
While working for the California Supreme Court, Melanie primarily analyzed and made recommendations on petitions for review.
She worked for the court's Civil Central Staff, and also worked in the chambers of Supreme Court Justice Edward Panelli, preparing bench opinion memoranda and advising Justice Panelli on the cases and petitions before the court.
In her spare time, Melanie taught Appellate Advocacy courses at the University of San Diego and California Western law schools.
She also lectured on persuasive writing to bar groups and law firms. In addition, Melanie founded and currently chairs the San Diego County Bar Association's Access to Appellate Justice Program, and she regularly presents at the San Diego County's Civil Self-Help Appellate Workshop. She has also served as a pro tem small claims judge in the San Diego County Superior Court, and is a Master at the San Diego Appellate Inn of Court.
Melanie received her J.D. from the Santa Clara University School of Law, cum laude.
She also served as Articles Editor for the Santa Clara Law Review. After law school, and before beginning work for the courts, Melanie practiced at the litigation firm Heller, Ehrman, White and McAuliffe. She received her B.A. in Economics and Political Science with highest honors from the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Pablo Drobny served as a lead appellate research and writs attorney for more than 36 years.
He is certified as a specialist in bankruptcy law by the California Board of Legal Specialization, and protects the interests of creditors, debtors, trustees, and other parties in bankruptcy-related appellate matters. Reno has appeared in the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the Ninth Circuit, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, and other courts sitting in an appellate capacity under the Bankruptcy Code. He also consults on general bankruptcy litigation in the U.S. Bankruptcy Courts.
He has represented and advised many types of business and individuals with bankruptcy issues.
Reno's experience includes representing technology companies, equipment manufacturers, equipment lessors, banks, hedge funds, medical clinics, residential care facilities, shopping centers, apartment and office buildings, hotels, food and beverage, retail chains, farms, wineries, churches, and nonprofits. Reno has also overseen creditor recovery, receiverships, and assignments for the benefit of creditors.
Reno is rated a "Northern California Super Lawyer" by Super Lawyers Magazine, and as a "Top Attorney" by San Francisco Magazine. He was twice awarded an Outstanding Volunteer Award by the Bar Association of San Francisco.
There, he made the Dean's List, won a Witkin Award, and earned three CALI Awards for Excellence. Reno has a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley.
Job Titles:
- Counsel
- Leader in First Amendment
Rex Heinke is widely recognized as one of the most accomplished and experienced appellate practitioners in California, and among the best in the nation.
He has argued more than 150 appeals in federal and state courts across the country. Between 2001 and 2020, Rex was co-head of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld's nationally renowned Supreme Court and Appellate practice.
He is regularly called on to defend major corporations and high-profile individuals in some of their most hotly contested appellate matters.
Rex has extensive experience before the California Supreme Court, the California Court of Appeal, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, as well as other federal and state appellate courts. Rex's victories have led to reversals of individual judgments worth more than $1 billion and dramatic changes in law to the benefit of his clients.
Rex is also a respected leader in First Amendment, intellectual property, entertainment, media, and Internet-related appellate litigation.
He has frequently represented newspapers, magazines, television networks, motion picture studios, websites, and entertainment production and distribution companies in their litigation and appellate work. He is the author of BNA's treatise on Media Law.
He has received many awards for his accomplishments.
Chambers USA has named Rex one of America's Leading Lawyers for Business in the "Litigation: Appellate" section every year since 2012. He has been listed in the Best Lawyers in America guide for nearly 30 years, and in 2018 was named to both the Daily Journal‘s list of the Top 100 Lawyers in California and the National Law Journal‘s Appellate Hot List. The Legal 500 business litigation guide has included him as one of the nation's top appellate lawyers for state and federal Supreme Courts since 2019. And he was twice named California Lawyer of the Year by California Lawyer Magazine. In 2019, the Friends of the Los Angeles County Law Library awarded Rex with the prestigious Beacon of Justice Award, in honor of his "vision, advocacy and passion for justice." In 2020, Public Counsel Law Center awarded him its Pro Bono Award for "providing outstanding and impactful service to those in need."
Rex is a past president of the Los Angeles County Bar Association and member of the California Judicial Council and State Bar Board of Governors.
He serves on the boards of directors of the Children's Law Center of Los Angeles, Bet Tzedek Legal Services, and the Topsy Foundation, a children's charitable organization in South Africa.
Rex received his law degree from Columbia Law School.
He clerked after law school for the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, Frederick Heebe. His undergraduate degree is from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, where he was the student body president and an anti-apartheid activist.
Robert A. Roth is widely regarded as one of the leading family law appellate specialists in California.
He has over 30 years' experience as an appellate practitioner and more than 25 published (and scores of unpublished) appellate opinions to his name. Robert has won twice in the California Supreme Court, and notably represented the successful respondent in In re Marriage of Ostler and Smith (1990) 223 Cal.App.3d 33, a seminal case that established the method California courts use every day to calculate division of bonus income.
He was one of the first attorneys in California certified as an appellate specialist by the State Bar.
Robert has remained a certified appellate specialist for more than two decades. In addition to family law appeals, he has substantial experience handling probate, real property, business transaction, tort insurance, admiralty, and State Bar appeals.
Job Titles:
- Counsel
- Expert in the Arcane Science of California
Sharon Baumgold is an expert in the arcane science of California appellate writs.
Susan Horst is a specialist in writs of mandamus and prohibition in the California appellate courts.
For more than 31 years, Susan served as the writ attorney for the California Court of Appeal for the First District, Division One, in San Francisco. Susan is one of the only practicing attorneys in California to have devoted virtually her entire career to appellate writs. As writ attorney in the First District, Susan evaluated thousands of pre- and post- trial writ petitions in all types of civil and criminal matters. In the process, she learned precisely what the justices on the Court of Appeal look for before taking the extraordinary step of granting writ relief - and what an opposing party needs to highlight to have the best shot at getting a petition denied.
Susan's three decades at the Court of Appeal gave her both extensive writing experience and a wide-ranging knowledge of substantive law.
Susan's casework ran the gamut from business and commercial litigation, to personal injury and employment matters, to real estate, insurance, and products liability cases, to professional negligence, disqualification, and privilege issues. The procedural postures of the writ petitions she handled were equally wide-ranging, and included pleading defects and class certification, sealing of court records, discovery disputes, summary judgment, settlement, and enforcement of judgments.
Her practice today focuses on writ petition consulting in the appellate courts and trial court work in anticipation of writ relief.
Susan also lectures widely on writ practice and procedure. She has presented seminars to the San Francisco City Attorney, District Attorney and Public Defender Offices, the State Bar of California, California Continuing Education of the Bar, The Rutter Group, PINCUS Professional Education, bar associations across California, and the Center for Judicial Education and Research. She is the co-author of Chapters for Continuing Education of the Bar publications, as well as training materials for numerous continuing education lectures.
Susan's career at the Court of Appeal followed motion and jury trial skills she developed early on as an Assistant District Attorney in San Francisco.
She holds her J.D. from the Santa Clara University School of Law, where she graduated summa cum laude - even though she attended law school part-time at night, while working as a full-time administrator at Stanford University during the day. She also has her B.A. in English from Stanford.
In her spare time, Susan volunteers on the Advisory Board of Advokids, a foster children's advocacy group.
She also provides pro bono advice and representation through the Advokids Appellate Project.
Susan Yorke has won appeals in the Ninth Circuit, the Oregon Supreme Court, and the California and Oregon intermediate appellate courts.
She has worked on more than a hundred appellate matters, ranging from constitutional and criminal law to trade secrets and professional licensure to complex jurisdictional and procedural issues in both state and federal courts. In addition to appellate briefing, she provides strategic advice to trial teams with complex and high-stakes trial matters and conducts realistic advance assessments of parties' chances for appellate success. She also has a well-developed amicus practice, having filed briefs for a range of clients in the U.S. Supreme Court and federal circuits.
Susan served as a law clerk to two judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
She clerked for both Judge Susan P. Graber and Judge Edward Leavy. In addition, before entering private practice, Susan served as an Assistant Attorney General in the Appellate Division of the Oregon Department of Justice, handling civil and criminal appeals in the Ninth Circuit and state appellate courts. She was also, for a time, Court Counsel to the Supreme Court of the Republic of Palau.
Susan's talents have been recognized.
The judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals appointed Susan as an Appellate Lawyer Representative in 2018, making her one of a small number of lawyers hand selected by the court to serve as a liaison between the bench and bar. In 2021, she was named a "Rising Star" in Appellate Law by Super Lawyers and to the "Ones to Watch" list by Best Lawyers. She has also served as co-editor of the ABA's Appellate Practice Journal and on the Editorial Board for the Federal Bar Association's magazine, The Federal Lawyer. She also co-taught the Ninth Circuit Practicum at UC Berkeley School of Law.
Susan graduated from Columbia Law School as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.
She also obtained a master's degree in public policy from Princeton University. She received her undergraduate degree in mathematics and English, with honors, from Williams College.
In a unanimous published opinion, the Ninth Circuit overturned the dismissal of Lanham Act claims brought by CALG client Trader Joe's.