Harmeet K. Dhillon

Dhillon is best known for her television appearances -- particularly on Fox News -- and her representation of high profile political conservatives. But the bulk of her firm's work is in the trenches of employment or First Amendment law, often for clients most people have never heard of.

"Our firm tends to represent the underdog quite a bit," said the founder of Dhillon Law Group Inc. "We're probably more anti-establishment than anything else," "We're often representing startup companies against bigger competitors or civil rights plaintiffs against the government or against big corporations."

Though given that her firm is in San Francisco, the establishment tends to be liberal, particularly on social issues. Dhillon represents James Damore, who was fired from his engineering job at Google last year after writing a memo arguing "distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don't have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership." His memo suggested "non-discriminatory ways to reduce the gender gap." The case is now in arbitration. Damore et al. v. Google LLC, 18CV321529 (Santa Clara Super. Ct., filed Jan. 8, 2018).

She also settled a case on behalf of the Berkeley College Republicans. Their complaint claimed UC Berkeley charged exorbitant fees and overly burdensome conditions to provide security for an evening of speeches by conservative figures including Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos.

"As a result of the lawsuit, the university will no longer be charging anything for speakers in most cases," Dhillon said. "There will be some venue-specific charges, but they won't be variable based on the content of the speech."

In a related "sideshow" case, Dhillon won $11,100 in attorney's fees against an Antifa organizer for filing a frivolous lawsuit and restraining order against the group's then-president, Troy Worden, though this money has not been paid. That case is an appeal, with the defendant contesting the verdict and Dhillon's firm seeking more than $100,000 for the actual costs of their work.

-- Malcolm Maclachlan