A top-rated law firm in the Bay Area: Sanford Heisler Sharp is poised to become the go-to plaintiffs firm for employees in Silicon Valley and employed by the Valley’s tech behemoths nationwide

“We are proud of our record of success.” — David Sanford

Sanford Heisler Sharp, a nationally recognized public interest law firm focused on employment rights, has opened an office in Palo Alto, California—its eighth office nationwide. From the warehouse worker to the female law partner, from the pharmaceutical and medical device sales representative to the C-suite executive, and from the technology worker to the founder of a start-up company, the firm protects the rights of its clients and promotes the cause of justice.

The Firm is headquartered in New York City. The additional seven offices are located in Washington, DC, Baltimore, Nashville, Atlanta, San Diego, San Francisco, and Palo Alto.

Now in its third decade, Sanford Heisler Sharp has built a rich track record representing individuals and plaintiff classes in high-profile, high-impact public interest cases. It works in a range of practice areas, including employment discrimination and retaliation based on gender, race, and age; qui tam (False Claims Act) and whistleblowing; wage and hour disputes; and sexual harassment claims. In recent years, the firm has expanded into three additional practice areas—Financial Services Fraud and ERISA; Asian-American Litigation and Finance; and Criminal/Sexual Violence.

Issues of social and economic justice have been part of Sanford Heisler Sharp’s DNA since David Sanford and Jeremy Heisler co-founded the firm in 2004. They started with three attorneys, operating from two offices, located in New York and Washington, DC. Sanford Heisler Sharp now has more than 50 attorneys spread over eight offices across the United States. These attorneys are graduates of the nation’s top law schools, and most of the Sanford Heisler Sharp lawyers have clerked for state and federal trial court and appellate judges.

The firm’s success at trial does not mean that it necessarily treats litigation as a first resort. In fact, it settles most of the cases confidentially, before a lawsuit is even filed. Throughout this “pre-suit” process, communications remain private, from the initial consultation with attorneys through negotiations and a successful resolution with the client’s employer.

Through mediation, the Sanford Heisler Sharp attorneys have negotiated pre-suit settlements with some of Silicon Valley’s biggest employers, including Google.

Employment, Civil Rights, and Human Rights Law Firm of the Year

Sanford Heisler Sharp has been recognized by the nation’s leading legal press, including the National Law Journal, Benchmark Litigation, and Law360, as being the best law firm in the United States in the employment, civil rights, and human rights areas. 

The firm believes in a collaborative team structure with legal assistants and support staff working in concert with attorneys across offices and practice areas.

“We are excited to bring our firm’s talent to Palo Alto and Silicon Valley to help individuals in their employment matters and assist those who blow the whistle on their companies because of fraud,” said David Sanford, who serves as the firm’s Chairman. “In just this past year, the Justice Department obtained more than $5.6 billion in settlements and judgments from civil cases involving fraud. There is much more work to be done.”

With its collective expertise and resources, Sanford Heisler Sharp aims to become the Valley’s go-to employee-side firm, not only in the trillion-dollar tech industry, but also for workers in hospitality, retail, and manufacturing. With its attorneys’ deep and intuitive understanding of Title VII and the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, Sanford Heisler Sharp has won class-wide settlements for contract workers at Google illegally deprived of full overtime wages, sales reps at Oracle who did not receive fair and full commissions, and female employees at Qualcomm who were paid less than their male counterparts.

With Sanford serving as lead counsel, the firm’s first big litigation win came in a class-action race discrimination case against the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain, resulting in an $8.7 million settlement on behalf of employees and customers. In 2010, Sanford secured what remains the largest jury verdict in U.S. history in an employment gender discrimination case—$253 million for some 7,000 female sales representatives of the pharmaceutical giant Novartis for gender discrimination in pay, promotions, and pregnancy. The firm’s qui tam/whistleblower practice, representing a former employee of the California-based biotech firm Amgen, collaborated with the U.S. Department of Justice in winning a $762 million global settlement over Amgen’s fraudulent sales practices.

Leading the Palo Alto Office

The three partners of Sanford Heisler Sharp’s Palo Alto office are experienced Bay Area attorneys with educational and public-service roots in the region.

Qiaojing Ella Zheng is Co-Managing Partner of both the Palo Alto and San Francisco offices and Chair of the firm’s Asian-American Litigation and Finance Practice Group. A bilingual, bicultural litigator with law degrees from China and the U.S., Zheng was recently named a 2022 Elite Trial Lawyers’ Rising Star by The National Law Journal; a 2022 Rising Star by Law360; a 2022 Top Labor & Employment Lawyer by Daily Journal; and a 2022 Asian Leaders Worth Watching by Profiles in Diversity Journal.

• Case highlight: Representing the co-founder of a Silicon Valley start-up who was wrongfully denied his equity stake in the company, Zheng won an $8.3 million arbitration award for breach of contract and fraud.

Felicia Gilbert is Co-Managing Partner of both the Palo Alto and San Francisco offices and Chair of the firm’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. Gilbert is a graduate of Stanford University (B.A., M.A.) and Columbia Law School. She was named a 2022 Latino Leaders Worth Watching by Profiles in Diversity Journal and a 2021 Litigation & Labor Employment Star by Benchmark Litigation.

• Case highlight: Negotiating confidential high six-figure and seven-figure settlements for C-suite executives and managers against large corporations nationwide.

Danielle Fuschetti is Co-Chair of the firm’s Discrimination and Harassment Practice Group. A graduate of Dartmouth (B.A.) and the University of Michigan School of Law, Fuschetti has been recognized as a Rising Star in Employment Law by Law360, Super Lawyers, and The National Law Journal.

• Case highlight: Settled a gender and wage discrimination case for $7.75 million on behalf of female employees at Western Digital, a digital storage solutions corporation, and settled a $19.5 million gender discrimination case against Qualcomm.

David Sanford, Chairman and Co-Founder of Sanford Heisler Sharp

David Sanford has been lead counsel in over 50 class actions and numerous whistleblower cases. Among other matters, David was lead counsel in the Novartis gender discrimination matter that yielded a $253 million verdict and class counsel in the $19.5 million gender discrimination settlement with Qualcomm. Importantly, he was lead counsel for dozens of female law partners across America and lead trial counsel in a gender discrimination matter on behalf of a professor against Columbia University, yielding a seven-figure jury verdict. Notably, he was co-lead counsel in a $762 million settlement against Amgen in a whistleblower case.

David has been recognized as the Labor and Employment Attorney of the Year in both 2019 and 2021 by Benchmark Litigation, the definitive guide to America’s leading litigation firms and attorneys. He was one of three lawyers in the United States named as Attorney of the Year Finalist in 2018 by The American Lawyer. In 2022, Chambers and Partners described David as one who “tries many high-profile cases and is excellent. He is very smart and has a commanding and powerful presence in court. He is a charismatic person and extremely knowledgeable.”

Commitment to Serving the Public Interest in the Bay Area

As part of Sanford Heisler Sharp’s overall commitment to public service, all three Palo Alto partners are active in local legal and advocacy organizations.

Ella Zheng is the President of the Chinese American Lawyers of the Bay Area, serves as a member of the Diversity Outreach Committee of the California Employment Lawyers Association, and is a volunteer attorney at both Legal Aid at Work and the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund.

Felicia Gilbert serves on the board of Legal Aid at Work and is a member of the board’s executive committee. She is also a member of the Black Women Lawyers Association of Northern California.

Danielle Fuschetti is a board member of the Center for WorkLife Law at the UC Hastings School of Law and a member of the California Employment Lawyers Association.

David Sanford extolled the collective skill and experience of the partners and their teams in Palo Alto:

“Our firm has always been committed to bringing cases in the public interest. We have a social justice, mission-driven firm that always asks whether or not any case we bring would make the world a slightly better place. In the process, we work for individual clients to attain some measure of justice that may otherwise elude them. We are proud of our record of success.”

“Our entire team is well-positioned to aggressively fight for individuals whose rights are compromised.”