Alexis S. Coll-Very

Shareholders sued when Coll-Very's client, analog and digital semiconductor device maker Avago Technologies, made a $300 million acquisition of PLX Technologies, alleging that the PLX board of directors breached their fiduciary duties, aided and abetted by Avago. The suit also names Deutsche Bank as a defendant, asserting the bank did not disclose to the PLX board until the day before it delivered its fairness opinion that it collected millions in fees from Avago in another transaction.

"The transaction closed a year ago, but the litigation remains alive," Coll-Very said. "I enjoy this kind of work very much. There's the complexity of the law and the facts, and there's the strategic importance of the case to your client. The stakes are high."

Coll-Very said she also likes working with Simpson Thacher's corporate team in such cases. "That's a really interesting dynamic and a lot of fun," she said.

Previously, Coll-Very spent years working pro bono with the ACLU of Northern California in challenging a large school district in Fresno County over its outdated and medically inaccurate sexual education program. Representing plaintiffs including local parents, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, Coll-Very and the team obtained a sweeping, precedential ruling about the requirements of California's 2003 Comprehensive Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Prevention Education Act.

"It was hard fought and a long slog," Coll-Very said of the litigation, filed in 2012 and concluded in May 2015 when a Fresno County Superior Court judge ruled that Clovis Unified School District's sex ed curriculum was out of compliance with the statute. The law required that students have a right to sex education that is complete, medically accurate and free of bias and that abstinence-only-until-marriage instruction is unlawful on the grounds of medical accuracy and bias.

"Our original strategy was pre-litigation advocacy," Coll-Very said. "We tried to convince them that they were violating the statute, but they were completely intransigent." The upshot was a favorable ruling for the plaintiffs and a grant of nearly $500,000 in attorneys' fees.

John Roemer