​Michele L. Maryott is co-partner in charge of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Orange County office. She is a member of the firm’s Litigation Department and its Labor and Employment and Class Actions Practice Groups.

Ms. Maryott’s practice focuses on business litigation, with particular emphasis on employment litigation, class actions and complex commercial disputes. She has litigated a wide range of labor and employment matters, including defending employers against wage and hour and discrimination class actions, and retaliation, sexual harassment, wrongful termination and whistleblower claims in federal and state courts, as well as in administrative proceedings and arbitrations. Her recent successes include defeating certification of a putative class of more than 70,000 employees in a wage and hour class action brought against a major healthcare company, which was unanimously affirmed by the California Court of Appeal in a published opinion.

In addition to handling employment matters, Ms. Maryott also represents clients in a wide variety of commercial litigation, including consumer class actions and other disputes involving environmental and toxic torts, acquisition-related disputes, unfair business practices and business torts. As trial counsel, Ms. Maryott has obtained numerous defense verdicts as well as multi-million dollar awards on behalf of clients in a variety of industries.

Ms. Maryott joined the firm after earning her law degree summa cum laude from Pepperdine University School of Law, where she served as editor in chief of the Pepperdine Law Review. She graduated summa cum laude from Westfield State College in 1994, with a bachelor of science degree in business administration and mass communication. Ms. Maryott is currently a member of the Board of Advisors of Pepperdine University School of Law.  She previously served on the Board of Directors of the Orange County Chapter of the Association of Business Trial Attorneys and as vice president of the Board of Directors for United Cerebral Palsy of Orange County. She has also served as a volunteer deputy district attorney for the County of Orange, representing the People in multiple trials and other criminal proceedings.