Brad Seligman

Jocelyn Larkin

Alvaro Soria

For the last 27 years, Brad Seligman has been a civil rights attorney specializing in class action and individual employment and civil rights litigation. He is the executive director of The Impact Fund, which provides financial and technical assistance and representation for complex public interest litigation. Since 1992, the Fund has rewarded over $4.3 million in grants 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 sex discrimination case against Wal-Mart Stores (Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 222 FRD 137 (N.D. Cal. 2004), 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 then 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 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 2004)). He represented one of the principal objectors to the Georgine class action settlement before the third Circuit and 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, Frye v. Tenderloin Housing Clinic, 38 Cal. 4th 23 (2006), which upheld the right of non-profit legal advocacy grouops 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 and City 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, and was 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 taught employment discrimination law at Hastings College of the Law and Golden Gate University Law School, and currently teaches a seminar on impact litigation at Hastings. He was a 1978 graduate of 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) lists him among the 100 most influential lawyers in America.

Jocelyn D. Larkin is Director of Litigation and Training for The Impact Fund. Her practice focuses on complex employment discrimination and class action practice on behalf of plaintiffs. Ms. Larkin has served as class counsel in several major employment class actions, including Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Stender v. Lucky Stores, Vandell v. Chevron Corporation, and Babbitt v. Albertson's. She co-represented the California respondents in Amchem v. Windsor, before the Third Circuit and the United States Supreme Court. The Amchem decision defined the standards under Fed. R. Civ. Pro 23 (b)(3) for the certification of a class created solely for purposes of effectuating a classwide settlement. Ms. Larkin has also represented many individual employees in sex harassment, wrongful termination and discrimination actions, and has been a frequent speaker on employment law and civil rights issues. She has published numerous articles on employment and class action practice. She is the co-editor of the class action chapter of Lindemann & Grossman, Employment Discrimination Law, the leading treatise on employment discrimination law.

Ms. Larkin is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego (B.A. 1980), and the UCLA School of Law (J.D., 1983). Ms. Larkin spent a one-year fellowship with the Los Angeles-based Center for Law in the Public Interest, before joining San Francisco's Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe. In 1987, Ms. Larkin became associated with Farnsworth, Saperstein and Seligman, and was elevated to named shareholder in 1990. She served as the firm's managing director in 1991-1992, until she left to found Oakland-based law firm, Ryu, Dickey & Larkin.

Ms. Larkin is the co-chair of the Employment Subcommittee of the ABA Litigation Section's Class Actions and Derivative Suits Committee. In addition, Ms. Larkin formerly served as a member of the National Governing Board of Common Cause, a grassroots citizens' lobby committed to open democracy and as a member of the Board of Directors for the Legal Aid Society of San Francisco. She is a member of the National Employment Lawyers Association.

Alvaro Soria is the Equal Justice Litigation Fellow at The Impact Fund. Mr. Soria clerked for the Hon. Patricio M. Serna of the New Mexico Supreme Court. A graduate of Stanford Law School, he was co-chair of the Stanford Latino Law Students Association, treasurer of Shaking the Foundations Progressive Lawyering Conference, and co-founder of the Stanford Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. He has worked at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Mr. Soria is a graduate of Stanford University (A.B. 2001).