She was a founding partner of Schwarcz, Rimberg, Boyd & Rader LLP. Before joining Brownstein Hyatt, she worked as a criminal prosecutor in New York, as a litigation associate at a major entertainment law firm, and as a tenured professor at Pepperdine University School of Law, specializing in complex and international litigation and trial practice, international human rights and foreign affairs law.
She's representing a class of 12,500 Sudanese refugees, many living in San Diego county, who fled violence in their homeland and seek to hold responsible the French bank BNP Paribas SA and its U.S. subsidiary for helping Sudanese banks elude international sanctions and use oil revenues to buy munitions used to repress its black citizens in Darfur and southern Sudan. She filed a potential class action on their behalf last month.
"At Pepperdine, I was in touch with these clients, the victims of large-scale atrocities," Boyd said. "This case is extremely emotional for the victims. A lot is at stake."
Last year, BNP Paribas settled criminal charges over sanctions violations brought by federal prosecutors in New York for $8.9 billion in forfeited funds, a $140 million fine and five years' probation. "The U.S. Department of Justice helped alert the victims to this case," Boyd said, adding that the class action she has filed remains fraught with challenges. "We are dealing with individual plaintiffs and the larger community of activists, [nongovernmental organizations] and human rights groups. Keeping all the balls in the air takes a lot of study with academics in this area, a lot of historical background. If I don't take the time to understand all the aspects, I might not frame the case in the right way." Kashef v. BNP Paribas SA, 16-cv-03228 (S.D. N.Y., filed May 2, 2016)
Boyd is a hands-on lawyer. "I spend a lot of one-on-one time with these clients," she said. "They have my cell phone. I have become clear about exactly who they are. We go to a coffee shop and sometimes just sit in silence, as one does in their culture. Nothing in my life comes close to what they've been through, but I listen and learn. This is my life's work."
- John Roemer
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