The Daily Journal named Haynes and Boone, LLP Partner M.C. Sungaila as one of the Top Women Lawyers in California. This was her 10th time (and ninth consecutive appearance) on the publication’s list of 100 leading women lawyers in the state.
Separately, Sungaila also was nominated for the Orange County Business Journal’s 24th annual Women of the Year Awards, which were presented May 3.
In a profile of Sungaila, the Daily Journal cited, among other things, two wins in two months that she secured at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Here’s an excerpt:
The first [win] challenged a district court’s invalidation of [an] employment arbitration agreement, and the appellate court ruled in Sungaila’s favor in February, one week after her oral argument. Nabors v. Ridgeway, 15-56675 (9th Cir. Feb. 13, 2018). Then in March, she argued on behalf of Mentor Graphics Corp. as a respondent in an appeal over a district court’s dismissal of a breach of fiduciary complaint. The plaintiffs were minority shareholders who argued on appeal that the parties’ Delaware choice-of-law provision is unenforceable, and California fiduciary duty law should apply. The appellate panel affirmed the district court decision in April. Kaul v. Mentor Graphics Corp., 16-17139 (9th Cir. April 16, 2018). ...
A graduate of UCLA School of Law, Sungaila embraced appellate work after trying her hand at trials. “I felt badly for witnesses if I had to cross-examine them, so I realized I’m probably not a trial lawyer,” Sungaila said. “Right after a trial I had, I wrote my first amicus brief.”
The Journal also noted 9th Circuit wins in 2017 and 2016 on behalf of a gay Mexican man’s asylum bid and a transgender woman from Mexico who also was seeking asylum in the United States, along with Sungaila’s frequent work on amicus briefs.
To read the full article, click here. (Subscription required)
A partner in Haynes and Boone’s Orange County office since 2015, 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. She was involved in two of 2017's five biggest appellate reversals in California cited by the Daily Journal. Also in 2017, she was named the Orange County Women Lawyers Association as Attorney of the Year and received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, whose recipients include seven U.S. presidents, Nobel Prize winners, athletes, leaders of industry, artists and others whose work has made a lasting impact on humanity, recognizing her combined professional achievements and humanitarian and pro bono work.
She has been named to the Who's Who Legal (Law Business Research Ltd) 2018 edition for Product Liability Defense. And the 2018 Chambers USA legal directory (Chambers & Partners) recognized her for appellate litigation in California.