Sonal N. Mehta

Mehta, a trial lawyer representing technology and life sciences companies in patent and technology disputes. She is the president of the Federal Circuit Bar Association and a former clerk for a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. She moved to WilmerHale in September 2019 from a partnership at Durie Tangri LLP.

Within days of her arrival at WilmerHale, she went to bat for client Facebook Inc., when social media marketing and app developer Stackia Inc. filed a complaint and a request for a temporary restraining order, claiming unfair competition after Facebook revoked its access to Facebook platforms after determining it was web-scraping public user data. Stackla Inc. v. Facebook Inc., 4:19-cv-05849 (N.D. Cal., filed Sept. 19, 2019).

“We got the call on a Thursday, my ninth day at the firm. I was still learning how to work the phone,” Mehta said. “Within hours I had people from our offices in L.A., D.C., and Denver volunteering to give up their weekend and pitch in on our TRO response. We filed it Monday morning.”

U.S. District Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton of Oakland heard Stackia’s request for emergency relief and denied it from the bench. The parties reached a confidential settlement shortly after that. Mehta pointed out that the matter involved a closely watched and fast-evolving area of law, and required speedy analysis of a weeks-old 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals opinion, hiQ Labs Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp., 17-16783, to differentiate it from the issues in Stackia’s complaint.

“That’s why I joined WilmerHale,” Mehta said. “It was a remarkable introduction to the firm’s broad-based team approach to jump in selflessly to help a client.”

In another matter for Facebook, Mehta is defending her longtime client over claims by an app developer that Facebook blocked it from accessing users’ “friends” data, disabling use of a “Pinkini” app that lets users locate photos of friends in bathing suits. Six4Three LLC v. Facebook Inc., CIV533328 (S. Mateo Co. Super. Ct., filed April 10, 2015).

At one point she secured a ruling from the trial judge that Facebook had made a prima facie showing that the plaintiff and its lawyers had engaged in a crime or fraud to violate a protective order by leaking sealed material.

“The case is ongoing, with an investigation into the scope of the leaks and the underlying claims,” Mehta said.

— John Roemer