Kelly M. Dermody

The managing partner of Lieff Cabraser in San Francisco specializes in class and collective actions on behalf of employees.

Dermody is working on gender pay class litigation alleging Alphabet Inc.-owned Google has paid women less than men who performed substantially equal or similar work across the technology giant's facilities in California. Ellis, et al. v. Google Inc., No. CGC-17-561299 (San Francisco Sup. Ct., filed Sept. 14, 2017). The suit could affect as many 8,300 current and former Google employees.

The case raises other topics resonating through the tech industry. In addition to being underpaid, women are often "under-leveled," meaning they may be assigned to lower compensation levels than male employees with similar skills and experience, Dermody said. And because people of color and women are historically underpaid, companies use these workers' salary history as a rationale to continue underpaying them.

"It's one of the first cases that's litigating the amended Equal Pay Act, and we're really hopeful we can secure some justice for women at Google," Dermody said.

One thing that would help victims of discrimination and harassment is changing the statute of limitations for bringing such claims against employers. A proposed state law, AB 9, would extend the time period for employment complaints from one year to three years.

"By comparison, under contract law you have four years to raise a breach of contract claim, which can be a relatively bloodless, arms-length type of litigation," Dermody said. "When bias issues are involved, it is fraught, traumatic and challenging. And fighting one's employer implicates the employee's ability to pay rent and receive health insurance. But the law requires employees to bring a bias claim in a matter of months. That needs to be fixed."

-- Jennifer Chung Klam