Attorney Profile: Brad Seligman

Brad Seligman  |   Jocelyn Larkin  |   Nina Farnia

 

Brad Seligman

For over 30 years, Brad Seligman has been a civil rights attorney specializing in class action and individual employment and civil rights litigation. He is the founder of public foundation, the Impact Fund, which provides financial and technical assistance and representation for complex public interest litigation. After serving as the organization's Executive Director for 17 years, Seligman became Senior Counsel in July 2010. Since 1992, the Impact Fund has granted over $5 million to support such litigation. From 1988-1991, he was the managing partner of the Oakland firm of Saperstein, Seligman, Mayeda and Larkin. From September 1991 until June 1994, he was of-counsel to the firm's successor, Saperstein, Mayeda and Goldstein. He was a senior Law Clerk to Judge Lawrence K. Karlton of the Eastern District of California and an extern to Justice Matthew O. Tobriner of the California Supreme Court.

He has successfully litigated over 50 civil rights class actions and countless individual employment cases including wrongful termination actions. He is lead counsel in the nationwide class action gender discrimination case against Wal-Mart Stores, Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 222 F.R.D. 137 (N.D.Cal.2004), aff'd in part and remanded 603F 3d 571 (9th cir 2010) (en banc), which is the largest civil rights class action ever certified. He is also lead counsel in a nationwide glass ceiling gender discrimination case against Costco, Ellis v. Costco, 240 F.R.D. 627 (N.D.Cal.2007).

He successfully tried and subsequently settled the third-largest sex discrimination class action recovery in history ($107.25 million), Stender v. Lucky Stores, 803 F.Supp.259 (N.D.Cal.1992) and also settled the first major challenge to the use of psychological testing by a private employer,Soroka v. Dayton Hudson Corp, dba Target Stores. He was co-lead counsel in the then-largest Americans with Disabilities Act access settlement, Arnold v. United Artists Theatre Circuit, 158 F.R.D. 439 (N.D.Cal.1994). He settled the largest disability employment class action ever, Glover v. Potter, (EEOC 2007) recovering $61 million for a class of 7500. He represented one of the principal objectors to theGeorgine class action settlement before the 3d Circuit and before the United States Supreme Court, where the standards for assessing settlement classes were handed down, Amchem Products, Inc. v. Windsor, 521 U.S. 591 (1997).

Before the California Supreme Court, he has argued, among other cases, Munson v. Del Taco, 46 Cal. 4th 661 (2009), which held that proof of intentional discrimination is not required for ADA violations under the unruh Civil Rights act, Frye v. Tenderloin Housing Clinic, 38 Cal.4th 23 (2006), which upheld the right of nonprofit legal advocacy groups to practice law; Sav-On Drug Stores, Inc. v, Superior Court, 34 Cal.4th 319 (2004), which established class certification standards in overtime class actions; andCity of Moorpark v. Superior Court, 18 Cal.4th 1143 (1998), a case which established that disability discrimination claims under the Fair Employment and Housing Act are not preempted by the Workers’ Compensation Act.

He has served on the Board of Directors of Equal Rights Advocates and California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. and also as the chair of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund Development Partnership. He was the co-founder of the San Francisco Bay Area Plaintiffs’ Employment Lawyers Association. He has spoken and written widely on topics of class actions, employment and public interest law, and attorneys’ fee litigation.

He has taught employment discrimination law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law and Golden Gate University Law School, and taught a seminar on class action litigation at UC Hastings. He was a 1978 graduate of UC Hastings College of the Law and a Teaching Fellow at Stanford Law School. He was a Regent’s Lecturer at UCLA School of Law in March 2006.

He has served as the chair of the Northern District Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel and as a Northern District delegate to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference.

The National Law Journal (June 19, 2006) has listed him among the 100 most influential lawyers in America.