SAN FRANCISCO, March 07, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Janette Wipper has rejoined Sanford Heisler Sharp as Firmwide Head of Litigation, effective March 1, 2023, after nearly a decade in public service. Janette first joined the firm in 2006, became a partner in 2010 and left the firm in 2014 to serve in the Obama-Biden Administration. During her nearly eight-year tenure with the firm, Janette was a tireless advocate for clients and instrumental to the success of many class action matters and individual cases.
She was part of the firm’s team that secured a $253 million jury verdict in a gender discrimination class action in the Southern District of New York, a case brought on behalf of a class of women sales representatives who were subjected to systemic gender bias at a pharmaceutical company.
At Sanford Heisler, Janette will oversee litigation across the firm’s 8 U.S. offices, provide strategic oversight and work with lawyers to ensure the firm continues to be one of the most successful civil rights firms in the United States. Her practice will also focus on worker rights and investor rights, representing both individuals and classes. Janette has extensive experience working on equal pay matters, stock equity and incentive compensation, and statistical evidence of discrimination. She has worked on complex and systemic matters in the pharmaceutical, technology, and video game industries for over a decade.
“When Janette left the firm in 2014 for a career in public service, I told her the door was always open for her at Sanford Heisler. We are incredibly happy that she took that message to heart and has returned to the firm,” said David Sanford, Chairman of Sanford Heisler Sharp. “This is an exciting time at the firm, with so many important cases on our docket that will change the employment space for the better and create good law and public policy. We’re pleased that Janette will be able to continue her work in the private arena with us.”
At the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) from 2014 to 2018, Janette served as the Head of the DOL’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs for the Western Region. In that role, she led civil rights investigations and enforcement actions against major companies that do business with the federal government. Her team of approximately 100 investigators, economists and lawyers audited thousands of federal contractors across eight states for compliance with heightened equal pay and other standards required of companies that receive taxpayer-funded contracts. During her tenure, Janette and her team strategically enforced these standards on behalf of the federal government and changed industry practices across technology, defense, finance and other industries for the first time. Under Janette’s leadership, DOL’s Western Region recovered millions of dollars in relief and pay adjustments, thousands of job opportunities, and other relief for women, people of color, and other workers who suffered discrimination. Her work also informed anti-fraud, antitrust, labor, securities, and other enforcement areas.
Most recently, Janette served from 2018 to 2022 as Chief Counsel of California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) that enforces anti-discrimination and equal pay laws. It was in that capacity that Janette developed landmark cases in California and nationally. Janette represented two state agencies in their first systemic gender discrimination, sexual harassment and equal pay case against a video game company and then led their negotiations in late 2021 that secured $100 million, plus $18 million in pay adjustments and injunctive relief, for approximately 2,000 women (California DFEH, California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement v. Riot Games, California Superior Court, Los Angeles). That case is the largest gender bias remedy obtained by a government enforcement agency, and is also the largest penalty award secured by a state agency under California’s Equal Pay Act and Private Attorneys General Act.
In 2020, Janette led a multi-jurisdiction lawsuit with the California Attorney General challenging the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) unlawful decision to bar state and local civil rights agencies’ access to federal employment data for systemic enforcement activities, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, in the Northern District of California. As a result of the California case, EEOC changed its policy to provide access to employment data to all state and local agencies nationwide. Janette also worked with a multi-jurisdiction coalition challenging EEOC’s decision to rollback its pay data collection rule, through public comment and amicus briefs in support of plaintiffs-appellees in National Women’s Law Center v. OMB. In addition to her work at the federal level, Janette led the state of California’s implementation of its first pay data reporting law, as well as the state’s first systemic enforcement cases under its expanded equal pay law.
Janette also led the first government enforcement action challenging caste discrimination in the United States (DFEH v. Cisco Systems, California Superior Court, Santa Clara County). Following the initiation of the case, many universities and companies across the country expressly banned caste discrimination for the first time. It also resulted in the first California appellate court decision that held a state enforcement action cannot be compelled to private arbitration.
Janette began her legal career with national non-profit civil rights organizations such as the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the NAACP. Before law school, Janette worked with indigenous communities challenging oil contamination in the Amazon at Acción Ecológica.
About Sanford Heisler Sharp
Sanford Heisler Sharp is a public interest and civil rights law firm with offices in New York, Washington, DC, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Atlanta, Baltimore, Nashville, and San Diego. The firm focuses on employment discrimination, Title IX, wage and hour, whistleblower and qui tam, criminal/sexual violence, financial services, and Asian American litigation and finance matters. Our lawyers have recovered over $1 billion for our clients through many verdicts and settlements.
In 2022, The National Law Journal named Sanford Heisler Sharp Civil Rights Firm of the Year, and it recognized the firm in 2021 as both the Employment Rights Firm of the Year and the Human Rights Firm of the Year. Law360 recognized the firm as Employment Practice Group of the Year in 2021, 2019, 2018, and 2016. Benchmark Litigation recognized the firm as the Labor & Employment Firm of the Year in 2021 and 2020.
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