Michael S. Sorgen is a 1967 cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School and has a B.A. (magna cum laude) from Brown University. He is admitted to the bars of California, District of Columbia, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Sorgen began his legal career at San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Aid Foundation where he engaged in poverty law reform. He was lead counsel in numerous precedent setting cases involving the rights of children. These include Wells v. One2One Learning Foundation, (2006) 39 Cal 4th 1164, where the California Supreme Court authorized proceedings as private attorneys general to curb sham practices by charter schools engaged in "distant learning" for home-educated children throughout the state; Scott v. Mayer, (N.D. Cal. 1969) where the federal court implemented the right to counsel for juveniles in San Francisco Juvenile Court and established a full-time Public Defender office there; Charles S. v. Board of Education, 20 Cal.App.3d 83 (1971) and Wong v. Hayakawa, 464 F.2d 1282 (9th Cir. 1972) which established due process for students in school disciplinary proceedings; T.N.G. v. Superior Court, 4 Cal.3d 767 (1970), where the California Supreme Court vindicated the rights of minors to have their juvenile court records sealed; and In Re William M., 3 Cal.3d 16 (1970) granting a right to pretrial release in lieu of bail.

From 1971 to 1976, he was a full-time adjunct professor of law at Hastings College of the Law, where he was responsible for the Civil Litigation Clinic from 1971 through 1976. He was the originating attorney in Larry P. v. Riles, 502 F.2d 963 (9th Cir. 1974), affirming an injunction against the use of I.Q. tests for placing African-American children in classes for the mentally retarded and awarding attorneys’ fees.

He served as General Counsel to the Oakland Unified School District from 1976 through 1980 and taught education law clinics at Boalt Hall (UC Berkeley) and Golden Gate University. He directly represented the School District in significant litigation, including a defense of its set-aside for minority contractors, Schmidt & Pollard v. Oakland Unified School District, 662 F.2d 550 (9th Circuit, cert. denied 1981). He also defended the School District successfully in numerous employment cases, including those in which disability, gender and race discrimination were alleged, and as to numerous issues involving intergovernmental financing and authority.

Mr. Sorgen taught civil procedure and education law as a visiting professor of law at Whittier Law School, 1982 to1983; Fulbright Professor of Law, Université de Nice, France, 1980 to 1981, and Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia, 1985 to 1986, teaching comparative constitutional law and human rights.

Since beginning his private practice in 1986, notable successes include Wells v. One2One Learning Foundation, (2006) 39 Cal 4th 1164, where the California Supreme Court authorized proceedings as private attorneys general to curb sham practices by charter schools engaged in "distant learning" for home-educated children throughout the state; the Children's Hospital cases reforming California's system of Medicaid reimbursement, see representative cases infra.; Singer v. Regents, where the California Court of Appeal reinstated a jury verdict assuring inventors of the MRI a fair royalty. The total recovery exceeded $4 million. In a similar case in federal court, the parties resolved a dispute as to proprietorship and value of a patent; Newton v. County of Napa, 217 Cal.App.3d 1551 (1990), protecting the rights of children and their parents from abusive practices by the County’s Child Protective Service; and Allen v. Scribner, 812 F.2d 426 (9th Cir. 1987), a leading Ninth Circuit decision on the rights of whistle blowers.

Joyce S. Kawahata is a 1983 graduate of University of California at Davis Law School. She holds a Bachelor of Art’s degree with honors from the University of California at Los Angeles in Asian Languages and spent three years as a Mombusho Scholar in Japan researching Japanese literature. She was a research attorney for Contra Costa County Superior Court law and motion department from 1985-1987. She has been associated with Mr. Sorgen's practice since 1987, primarily in the area of plaintiff's employment law. She currently serves as the firm's technical and personnel administrator, while simultaneously doing legal work on pending cases.

Andrea Adam Brott is a 1985 graduate of the New York University School of Law, where she was an editor of the Annual Survey of American Law and published an article on developments in evidence law. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree (magna cum laude) from Harvard University. Prior to joining Mr. Sorgen’s practice in 1994, she was an associate in the litigation department of Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe, where she did extensive work in the area of civil liberties, her primary interest.

After seven years of litigation, Ms. Brott reached a settlement of an excessive force case against the City and County of San Francisco that establishes a full-time ombudsperson to assure better treatment of children detained at the Youth Guidance Center in San Francisco, Jackson v. City and County of San Francisco (N.D. Cal.). Ms. Brott obtained substantial monetary settlements including attorneys’ fees and the client’s promotion to a high level management position in two recent discrimination cases. Ms. Brott and Mr. Sorgen also served as lead counsel in a class action, Laurie Q. v. Contra Costa County to vindicate the civil rights of disabled children in the foster care dependency system. Ms. Brott does complex business and civil rights litigation and has litigated numerous cutting-edge issues relating to liability and governmental immunities, constitutional protections and civil procedures.

Ryan L. Hicks is a 2008 graduate of The University of California Hastings College of the Law and holds a B.A. in Business Administration from The University of Washington. While a law student, Mr. Hicks served on the Board of Directors for the Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal; participated in the Hastings Criminal Practice Clinic and worked at the San Francisco District Attorney's Office for a year, appearing and arguing on behalf of the people of California at arraignments, preliminary hearings and evidentiary suppression hearings; and in an employment law firm, representing plaintiffs.

Mr. Hicks has case experience at all stages from pre-litigation settlement negotiations through the appellate process. He has worked on class actions and other complex litigation, including multi-district litigation in both state and federal court; age, race and disability discrimination cases; wage and hour violation cases; and QuiTam claims arising under the federal Medicare statutes and the California False Claims Act against government as well as private defendants.

Lisa P. Mak graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, San Diego in 2005 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. She received her J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 2008. While in law school, she interned at the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office for their labor team and completed a clinical program at the Legal Aid Society Employment Law Center. She also clerked for Honorable Anne Beytin Torkington at the Department of Labor, Office of Administrative Law Judges in San Francisco, drafting decisions for retaliation, wage and hour, and Longshore Act cases.

Since joining Mr. Sorgen’s practice, she has prepared mediation briefs for Wahid v. Nation’s Foodservice, Inc. (Alameda Superior Court), a wage and hour case involving the missclassification of fast food store managers, and Ellis v. Spelling (N.D. Cal.), a disability discrimination case involving a federal employee. Both cases settled favorably at mediation. She has also litigated and negotiated employment discrimination cases involving race and disability, as well as police misconduct cases.