Kelly M. Dermody

Seven Bay Area companies have been accused of violating antitrust laws by agreeing not to recruit each other's employees.

"The employment context is unusual," said Dermody, co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs. "You don't usually see employers wage-fixing together, and this is the first case involving high-tech workers."

Re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, CV 11-2509-LHK (N.D. Cal.).

The conspiracy alleged is particularly of interest to people in California, she said, "where we have all of these very cutting-edge companies and employees with specialized talent sets in high demand and in high competition."

"The allegation is that companies are trying to artificially suppress wages by lowering demand and eliminating a bidding war for talent," Dermody said.

The defendants are Adobe Systems Inc., Apple Inc., Google Inc., Intel Corp., Intuit Inc., Lucasfilm Ltd., and Pixar Animation Studios Inc.

A motion for class certification is expected to be filed Sept. 17, Dermody said, with a hearing set for a time in December.

Dermody also is serving as president of the Bar Association of San Francisco.

She is among a coalition of bar leaders who are trying to raise the profile of the courts by lobbying in Sacramento regarding funding issues.

"This is about the impact of real people and access to justice," Dermody said.

As the bar reaches its 25th year of studying diversity, she said another of her goals is to identify how best to assess progress by taking a fresh look at what is studied and reviewing whether the data being collected is sufficient to tell the whole story.

That also may include studying differences within diverse groups, such as the experiences of female, LGBT or disabled lawyers of color, Dermody added.

"Sometimes numbers can be deceptive," she said. "You might show that an overall percentage of lawyers of color is consistent but not show that retention might be worse, and you have a revolving door of hiring those people and counting those numbers. We need to come up with more targeted strategies."

- PAT BRODERICK