Elizabeth A. Dooley is a senior associate in the San Francisco office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Her practice primarily focuses on appellate and employment matters.  She is a member of the firm’s Hiring Committee. Elizabeth was recognized in the 2024 edition of Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch® in America for Litigation – Labor and Employment.

Elizabeth’s appellate experience includes arguing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and authoring briefs filed in the United States Supreme Court as well as state and federal appellate courts. Having spent law school and the entirety of her legal career in California, Elizabeth has particularly robust experience before the Ninth Circuit and the California Courts of Appeal. From 2013-2014, she clerked for the Honorable Kim McLane Wardlaw of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and from 2015-2016, Elizabeth clerked for Ninth Circuit Judge, Hon. Michele T. Friedland.

Elizabeth’s labor & employment experience includes extensive motions practice at the trial court level and appellate work in both state and federal courts—including taking matters directly from a successful dispositive motion through defense on appeal. Her experience also includes litigating large, complex putative class actions and collective actions in federal courts, including in cases involving alleged discrimination and alleged independent contractor misclassification. She has also participated in sensitive internal investigations involving high-level employees, handled pre-litigation EEOC matters, and shepherded clients through numerous successful mediations. Although her focus is on employment and appellate matters, Elizabeth handles all types of matters impacting her corporate clients, including securities class actions, derivative lawsuits, and commercial contract disputes.

Elizabeth has also represented pro bono clients in a variety of matters, including in three Ninth Circuit appeals and in several amicus briefs and briefs in opposition to certiorari submitted to the United States Supreme Court. In 2018, she argued before the Ninth Circuit and secured reversal of an agency determination that had denied her client protection under the Convention Against Torture.  On remand, she obtained the release of her client—six years after he had first been detained—along with a grant of protection under the Convention Against Torture, permitting him to remain in the United States.

Elizabeth earned her Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 2013, where she was a member of the Stanford Supreme Court Litigation Clinic and the Stanford Community Law Clinic. While in the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, Elizabeth was part of the four-student team that worked on United States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. 744 (2013), Edith Windsor’s successful challenge to the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, for which the Clinic served as co-counsel to Ms. Windsor. Elizabeth also served as co-president of the law school’s LGBT organization at Stanford.

Elizabeth received her Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 2007, where she was elected Phi Beta Kappa. Prior to attending law school, Elizabeth taught high school English in South Los Angeles through Teach for America while earning her Master of Arts in secondary education from Loyola Marymount University.

Elizabeth currently serves on the Leadership Development Committee of the Northern California chapter of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers. She previously served on the boards of the Aids Legal Referral Panel and Stanford Pride, Stanford University’s LGBT alumni organization.