Ruth M. Bond

As a partner with Renne Public Law Group since January 2019, Bond generally represents municipal governments facing employment litigation, much as she did for 14 years with the San Francisco City Attorney’s office. Over the last year, however, her work has broadened.

Now, she oversees the firm’s workplace investigations practice. “I’m splitting my time between litigation and investigations,” she said. “That’s the one area where my practice has grown a lot.”

Though she can’t describe specific matters, she says she and her team have made a notable contribution in the area. They have conducted both politically sensitive investigations and more typical probes into alleged workplace violence, fraud and discrimination. Clients include fire and police departments, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, Solano County and cities from Stockton to Fullerton.

The litigation side of her practice is busy, too. Currently, she is part of the team bringing shareholder derivative suits to push for greater diversity in corporate boardrooms and c-suites. The lawsuits claim the boards of directors of Facebook, the Gap, Monster Beverage and four other well-known companies are responsible for false and misleading statements about diversity in proxy statements.

Monster, for example, proclaims diversity to be a “tremendous asset” yet has no minority board members or top executives, Bond said. “Leadership needs to back up the words in their public reports by including diverse voices at the highest levels,” she said in a press release.

Bond said most of her cases end in summary judgments, while some others settle. Of the handful of trials she’s put on, she has never lost one, she said.

Last November, she won a defense jury verdict for San Francisco against two plaintiffs claiming the city retaliated against them as whistleblowers. Stafsberg v. City & County of San Francisco, CGC-17-560370, (S.F. Super. Ct., filed July 24, 2017)

The highlight of her career, however, is the trial she did lose — temporarily. That case began in 2010 when 15 firefighters sued San Francisco claiming age discrimination. It ended finally in 2018 when the state Supreme Court let stand the rare judgment notwithstanding the verdict Bond won after the jury came back 9-3 for the plaintiffs. Danner v. City and County of San Francisco, CGC 10-501981, (S.F. Super. Ct., filed July 28, 2010).

“I think I learned more on that case than on any other case in all of my career because it was so fiercely litigated on both sides,” Bond said.

Outside of work, she is on the board of Friends of the Children in San Francisco, which provides professional mentors to work with underprivileged kids from kindergarten through elementary school.

— Don DeBenedictis