Cameron W. Fox

Fox was lead counsel in representing Google LLC and its parent company, Alphabet Inc., in a case in the National Labor Relations Board and another in state court regarding the lawfulness of their confidentiality, data security and conduct policies.

The NLRB general counsel alleged that Google’s and Alphabet’s policies violate the National Labor Relations Act, which Paul Hastings said makes it the first major unfair labor practice case brought against a Silicon Valley tech company over these confidentiality policies that have become commonplace in the last several years.

In the state court action, two Google employees filed claims under the California Private Attorneys General Act, seeking penalties from Google for maintaining and enforcing many of the same policies that are at issue with the NLRB case. In 2017, Fox and her team secured dismissal of 17 of 18 causes of action. Doe v. Google Inc., CGC-16-556034 (San Francisco Super. Ct., filed Dec. 20, 2016).

“With the PAGA case, it purported to cover all of Google’s workforce across the country that related to Google’s confidentiality and data security case,” Fox said. “It was challenged as unlawful.”

In one of the more high-profile cases of her career, Fox defended Google against labor charges and a class action suit filed by former employee James Damore in January, where he alleges that Caucasians, males and political conservatives have suffered race, gender and political discrimination at Google.

This suit is the second attempt by Damore to attack Google for his dismissal. He originally filed charges with the NLRB, which were rejected in Google Inc., a subsidiary of Alphabet, Inc., 32-CA-205351 (NLRB Jan. 19, 2018).

“The timeliness of those cases are, in some ways, unique consequences of the divisive political environment we see our country in right now,” Fox said. “In representing employers in California and outside California, we are seeing an increase in, what I refer to, are situations of culture wars.”

Fox and her team at Paul Hastings repeatedly prevailed in a case related to executive mobility and trade secrets involving former employees of AeroVironment Inc. who allegedly stole important inventions and launched a competing business during their employment. AeroVironment Inc. v. Torres et al., 56-2015-00465460-CU-BC-VTA (Ventura Super. Ct., filed March 19, 2015).

While the former employees filed multiple motions to dismiss and attempted to block discovery, Fox and her team secured discovery.

The case was tried to a jury in Ventura County Superior Court for seven weeks beginning in January, and the jury found that the three former AeroVironment employees engaged in fraud while two of those employees breached their contracts. The verdict totaled more than $2.4 million.

“We had a jury deeply committed to the case,” Fox said. “It’s a good case study in how important jury selection is, not only because it’s important to find jurors who are committed to a case and see it through, but also because we had a jury that had a lot of professional experience that was helpful for them to understand the technology at issue. And to add, that can be one of the trickiest aspects of litigating trade secrets.”

— Matthew Sanderson