During her Fellowship, Em was exposed to the ins and outs of litigation and a breadth of substantive areas. Em helped draft a complaint against a cosmetics multi-level marketing company for allegedly violating multiple California employment laws and California’s Unfair Competition Law. This was particularly exciting for Em as she is devoted to advancing gender justice, and this defendant’s workforce was predominantly women. Em was also involved in plaintiff vetting in similar cases, with great supervision, guidance, and autonomy.
Em worked with multiple TZ Partners on various consumer protection cases against banks, technology companies, school lunch payment processors, and a higher education institution for allegedly fraudulently inflating its rankings to entice and deceive prospective students to enroll. Across these cases, Em helped with researching and drafting motions to dismiss, Daubert briefing, class certification, as well as discovery requests. She also helped draft multiple complaints in a data breach MDL.
As part of her Fellowship, Em spent three months at the Housing and Economic Rights Advocates (HERA), which is dedicated to assisting low- and middle-income Californians preserve their property and assets. While at HERA, she was able to leverage her Spanish skills almost daily to provide direct legal services to clients and assist her colleagues in doing the same. She attended multiple clinics organized by HERA to provide in-person legal services to individuals being sued by credit card companies and debt collectors, first and foremost, to file Answers in court to avoid having Default Judgement entered against them. Her work spanned meaningfully across the Homeownership team and Estate Planning team. Em also helped the team get over the finish line to pass SB 784, which would grant consumers the right to cancel contracts for home improvement loans made with predatory, opportunist lenders that target older individuals and non-English speakers. Her time at HERA was a powerful opportunity to learn and support an incredible team fighting on the ground, tirelessly, for Californians’ rights across numerous consumer protection issues.
Em was continuously refreshed by the enthusiasm of everyone at TZ for holding powerful companies accountable for their unlawful and unjust actions. The Fellowship provided her valuable, hands-on litigation experience – as well as a very worthwhile excuse to move to California!
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