Wendy E. Musell

The class action case stretches back to 1990, when state prisoners with mental illnesses alleged they were receiving inadequate care that put them at serious risk of death, injury, and suffering. In the years that followed, a federal court issued an injunction mandating changes to the prison mental health care system; the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the state's prisons were chronically understaffed; the same federal court told ordered the state defendants to comply with increased staffing ratios; and the defendants proposed to cut their staffing obligations for psychiatry staff by about 20%. The plaintiffs were days from accepting the proposal. But then came the whistleblower report.

Filed by Dr. Michael Golding, the state prison system's chief psychiatrist, the 2018 report alleged the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation was hiding evidence it was not meeting improvements mandated by the court. In November 2019, U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller ruled the department "knowingly misled" the court, and rejected the department's assertions Golding was a difficult employee with biases. Coleman v. Newsom, 90CV00520 (E.D. Cal., filed April 23, 1990).

"One of the things that I'm literally the most proud of my entire legal career is the representation of Dr. Golding," said Musell, who clarified she didn't represent the class of prisoners. "For me, Dr. Golding is a hero. What he was talking about was incredible suffering - that he could not stand silent. And he didn't."

"I've been doing employment law since 1999 when I graduated, and at times justice can seem elusive and the courts can seem at times the furthest away from who's going to provide that justice," Musell continued. The case gave her "new hope because frankly, I didn't have the expectation that there would be systemic change. So that was deeply moving to me," she said.

Musell always knew she wanted a civil rights and employment practice. Since graduating from the Northeastern University School of Law, she's worked on union organizing efforts, as well as wage and hour, employment discrimination, and disability cases at firms such as Leonard, Carder, Nathan, Zuckerman, Ross, Chin & Remar LLP and Schneider Wallace Cottrell Konecky LLP before launching her own practice. She's now a partner at Stewart & Musell LLP, and recently completed her term as chair and president board of the California Employment Lawyer's Association.

Over the past year, Musell's focus has been representing whistleblowers such as Dr. Golding and drafting #MeToo legislation. And as the pandemic continues, she only expects the need for civil rights advocates to ramp up.

"I think we're headed into some major economic downturn," she said. "So my chief work, as I see it in the next couple of years, is to hold the line of those civil rights employment laws."

-- Jessica Mach