Haynes and Boone, LLP Partner M.C. Sungaila was elected to a three-year term on the Orange County Bar Association Board of Directors, following a yearlong term as an appointed director-at-large.
The mission of the OCBA is to enhance the system of justice, support the lawyers who serve it and assist the community served by it. At more than 8,500 members, the OCBA is one of California’s largest voluntary bar associations, providing a wide variety of programs, services and opportunities for its members, the judiciary and the community.
Sungaila, a litigator in Haynes and Boone’s Appellate Practice Group, also was appointed this year to a three-year term on the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the American Judicial System’s Subcommittee on Federal Courts, which focuses on improving the fair and effective administration of justice in the federal judicial system.
In September, she was honored by the Orange County Women Lawyers Association as Attorney of the Year for her professional accomplishments, lifelong dedication to securing important rights for women and girls nationally and internationally, and commitment to community service and pro bono work.
Earlier in 2017, Sungaila was awarded 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.
Sungaila repeatedly has been named a “Notable Appellate Practitioner” by Chambers USA, Chambers & Partners (2013-2017). Clients describe her in one Chambers listing as a “gifted appellate lawyer who consistently delivers bottom line results” and praise her for her “great practical sense,” “laser” focus on key issues, "excellence in creative thinking," and ability to “advise on the business side just as well as she does on the legal side.”
She also has been recognized repeatedly by the Daily Journal as one of California’s 100 Leading Women Lawyers and in 2015 was named one of the state’s Top Labor & Employment Lawyers. She received a 2015 California Lawyer of the Year (CLAY) award from California Lawyer magazine for the precedent-setting franchisor vicarious liability case Patterson v. Domino’s Pizza, and in 2016 for a precedent-setting transgender immigration case she argued before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.