Theane Evangelis is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP.  She serves as Co-Chair of the firm’s global Litigation Practice Group and previously served as Co-Chair of the firm’s Class Action Practice Group.  Ms. Evangelis is also a member of the Appellate, Labor and Employment, Media, Entertainment, and Technology, and Crisis Management Practice Groups.  She joined Gibson Dunn after serving as a law clerk to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor during October Term 2004 and as an associate with Ziffren Brittenham, a Los Angeles law firm specializing in entertainment and media transactions.  Before clerking for Justice O’Connor, Ms. Evangelis was a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Ms. Evangelis has served as lead counsel in a wide range of bet-the-company appellate, constitutional, class action, labor and employment, media and entertainment, and crisis management matters in trial and appellate courts across the country.  Her professional achievements are widely recognized by leading publications.  She is recognized by Chambers USA, a publication that identifies and ranks the most outstanding lawyers, for Appellate – Litigation in their 2021 and 2022 guides.  Additionally, Benchmark Litigation named her California Labor & Employment Litigation Attorney of the Year for her lead role in a variety of important class actions. According to the Los Angeles Business Journal, which named Theane the 2021 Labor and Employment Lawyer of the Year, she “has emerged as a go-to class action lawyer for businesses whose business models are under attack.” Most recently in 2021, the Daily Journal named Ms. Evangelis to its annual list of Top 100 Lawyers in California and credited her with “keeping the wheels of the gig economy turning.”

Ms. Evangelis has also been named a “Class Action MVP” by Law360 three times and has been named “Litigator of the Week” by The American Lawyer. She received the 2022 distinguished Amicus Service Award from the International Municipal Lawyers Association for her service to the IMLA Legal Advocacy program.  In 2018 and 2019, she was named as one of Los Angeles’ Most Influential Women Attorneys by the Los Angeles Business Journal, an honor designated for only 75 of the city’s most influential women attorneys. The Daily Journal has named her as a “Top Women Lawyer in California” for 2016-2021. Most recently, Ms. Evangelis was named by Euromoney Legal Media Group as the 2021 Litigation Lawyer of Year at the Americas Women in Business Law Awards.

Recent representative matters include:

• Serving as lead counsel to Uber in a series of private and public lawsuits across the country alleging misclassification of drivers who use the Uber app;
• Serving as lead counsel for plaintiffs in a constitutional challenge to California’s worker classification law AB5;
• Defeating a lawsuit by opponents of Proposition 22, a ballot initiative to protect worker independence in California, that attempted to silence Uber’s communications about the initiative on the eve of the election;
• Serving as lead appellate counsel and obtaining a landmark, precedent-setting opinion and reversal of a nine-figure wage and hour class action judgment against a leading retailer;
• Serving as lead counsel to a leading retailer in the Ninth Circuit and obtaining interlocutory review under Rule 23(f) and reversal of class certification;
• Serving as lead counsel for Uber in the Ninth Circuit and obtaining the first federal circuit decision defeating application of the Federal Arbitration Act’s Section 1 transportation worker exemption to rideshare drivers;
• Serving as lead counsel to Uber and Postmates in the Supreme Court of the United States in a series of cases challenging California’s Iskanian rule, which bars enforcement of PAGA waivers in arbitration agreements;
• Representing actor Ashley Judd against Harvey Weinstein seeking redress for the career-changing harm Mr. Weinstein caused when he defamed Judd to filmmakers in retaliation against Ms. Judd for having rejected Mr. Weinstein’s sexual advances;
• Winning a landmark trial victory on behalf of Grubhub in the first federal case ruling that a driver-partner who used Grubhub’s app was an independent contractor, after preemptively defeating class certification;
• Serving as lead counsel to Reddit in defense of a putative nationwide class action alleging violation of federal anti-sex trafficking laws;
• Successfully presented argument in the Sixth Circuit on behalf of Uber Technologies, Inc., in a proposed overtime class action brought by two Uber drivers. The three-judge panel unanimously found that two Michigan men, who accused Uber of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act and Michigan labor law by classifying them as independent contractors and denying them wages and other benefits, were bound to arbitrate their claims;
• Representing Uber and persuading the Ninth Circuit to grant interlocutory review of a class certification order, and obtaining decisions by the Ninth Circuit enforcing Uber’s arbitration agreements and decertifying a class of hundreds of thousands of drivers;
• Securing the complete reversal from the Ninth Circuit of a class action judgment against Kimberly Clark involving claims of fraud and unfair competition, after obtaining a 95% reduction from the Central District of California of the nearly half-a-billion-dollar verdict;
• Presenting argument on behalf of Yamaha and obtaining a published, precedential opinion from the Ninth Circuit dismissing a nationwide class action and limiting a manufacturer’s duty to disclose safety-related latent defects under California law;
• Persuading the Supreme Court of the United States to reverse the certification of the largest employment class action in American history;
• Representing the plaintiffs from trial to the Supreme Court of the United States in the historic federal constitutional challenge striking down California’s ban on same-sex marriage, Proposition 8;
• Serving as lead counsel for the City of Boise in the U.S. Supreme Court in defending the constitutionality of the City’s ban on public camping in Martin v. City of Boise;
• Successfully defended Reese Witherspoon and Draper James in a nationwide putative consumer class action;
• Obtaining summary judgment in a breach of contract case on behalf of David Letterman’s production company, Worldwide Pants;
• Presenting argument on behalf of Hewlett-Packard Company and obtaining a precedent-setting, published opinion from the Ninth Circuit regarding a manufacturer’s duty to disclose latent defects under California law;
• Obtaining a unanimous victory for Standard Fire in the Supreme Court of the United States in a case involving the proper interpretation of the Class Action Fairness Act;
• Obtaining reversal of a nearly $90 million judgment in a wage and hour class action in the California Court of Appeal;
• Serving as appellate counsel to Toyota Motor Company in the multidistrict litigation arising out of drivers’ reports of “unintended acceleration” in Toyota vehicles and persuading the Ninth Circuit to grant interlocutory review of whether “no injury” class-action plaintiffs lack Article III standing;
• Representing California public school students bringing in a landmark constitutional challenge to state tenure laws that prevent school administrators from hiring and retaining the most effective teachers;
• Persuading the Ninth Circuit to grant interlocutory review of several class certification decisions;
• Winning dismissal with prejudice of a putative nationwide consumer class action filed in federal court against a technology company, which was subsequently affirmed by the Ninth Circuit;
• Securing a dismissal, with prejudice, of a putative nationwide consumer class action filed in federal court against an internet company;
• Obtaining decertification of a major wage-and-hour class action in state court;
• Winning a dismissal, with prejudice, in favor of Starbucks Corporation in a contractual dispute with singer-songwriter Carly Simon;
• Obtaining reversal on constitutional grounds of a significant punitive damage award in state court; and
• Representing ABM in a series of putative wage and hour class actions in California state and federal courts.

Ms. Evangelis graduated summa cum laude from New York University School of Law in 2003 and received the University Graduation Prize, which is awarded to the student with the highest grade point average in the graduating class.  During law school, she was a Butler and Pomeroy Scholar and served as Managing Editor of the New York University Law Review.

Prior to law school, Ms. Evangelis served as a legislative assistant to former U.S. Representative Max Sandlin, for whom she handled financial services, technology, and foreign affairs legislation.  She received a B.S. in Foreign Service, cum laude, from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.

Ms. Evangelis is a member of the California bar and is admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the United States, several U.S. Courts of Appeal across the country, and all federal courts in California.  Ms. Evangelis serves on the board of the California Women’s Law Center and as an Advisory Board Member of the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival. She serves on the State Appellate Judicial Evaluation Committee of the Los Angeles Bar Association and is also a Member of the Board of Trustees of the NYU Law School as well as St. James Episcopal School.

In its annual Top Verdicts of California 2018 feature, the Daily Journal recognized Ms. Evangelis  for three of her litigation successes where she was able to obtain record verdicts for clients Uber, Kimberly-Clark and Grubhub.  In 2018, she was selected by The American Lawyer as a Litigator of the Week based on her win on behalf of Grubhub in the first federal case regarding the classification of workers in the “gig” economy.  In 2013, she was named by the Daily Journal as one of the “Top 20 California Attorneys Under 40.”  She has been listed in Law360’s “Rising Stars” for 2013 and 2015 in Appellate Law, and a Class Actions “Rising Star” for 2014.  She was selected by her peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America© in the field of Appellate Practice from 2014-2022 and was also named “Los Angeles Appellate Lawyer of the Year” by Best Lawyers®.  In addition, Ms. Evangelis has been recognized by The Recorder as one of California’s “Lawyers on the Fast Track,” and was selected as one of “Greek America’s Forty under 40” by the Greek America Foundation.  Southern California Super Lawyers named her as a “Super Lawyer” in Los Angeles Magazine in the category of Appellate Law, and she was recognized as one of the “25 Most Intriguing Greek Americans of 2010” by Greek America Magazine for her work challenging Proposition 8.  Benchmark Litigation has listed Ms. Evangelis on their “Under 40 Hot List,” which honors the achievements of the nation’s most accomplished legal partners of the age of forty or younger.  Benchmark Litigation also recognized her as a California “Future Litigation Star” in their 2018 and 2019 editions.