Hailyn J. Chen

There are close to 2,000 new lawyers in California this year who wouldn’t be lawyers were it not for work by Chen and a committee she led.

Chen is her firm’s co-lead managing partner and a top-flight litigator who frequently represents the University of California in sensitive matters like allegations of sexual assault involving students.

Other clients include the National Collegiate Athletic Association and Airbnb. She also advises entities on and conducts investigations into harassment and abuse issues.

In addition, she serves on the State Bar Board of Trustees. When the state Supreme Court last year told the bar to develop suggestions to resolve a couple of unique problems with the bar exam, the trustees asked Chen to take the lead.

The first problem was how to make up for the lack of an in-person bar exam last July.

Following the court’s request, Chen formed a working group that designed a detailed program to license 2020 law school graduates provisionally under the supervision of practicing attorneys. It began admitting new lawyers in November.

Next, the court asked her group to expand provisional licensing to people who failed the bar exam, but only barely, in the last several years. The goal is to make the exam’s newly lowered passing score available to them. That expanded program went live in late February.

Chen is proud of her working group’s achievements. “It was a fraught and potentially divisive topic, but we pulled together a group of diverse stakeholders and came up with a proposal that … is one of the more popular things the State Bar has done,” she said.

As a litigator, Chen defends the University of California in litigation brought by people who believe the university did not do enough to protect them from sexual assault and by people who claim they were falsely accused of assault.

She also represents it in a pair of high-profile lawsuits objecting to standardized admission tests. Smith v. Regents of the University of California, RG19046222 (Ala. Super. Ct., filed Dec. 10, 2019).

Last year, Chen began defending the NCAA in a putative class action brought by women who claim the sports organization should have done more to protect them from sexual assault by their coach. Aldrich v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, 1:20-cv-02310 (S.D. Ind., transfered Sept. 8, 2020).

And, she noted, “I’ve done a significant amount of work for other clients that I can’t talk about because it’s not public.”

— Don DeBenedictis