Sierra Elizabeth

Less than a dozen years after becoming a lawyer and participating in her first trial, Elizabeth is trying some of the biggest cases in the country.

One of them comprises about 220,000 individual lawsuits in the largest federal multi-district litigation in U.S. history. Another encompasses about 35,000 lawsuits, making it the largest case currently in any California court, she said.

In the MDL, she is part of a Kirkland team defending 3M Co. against accusations its Combat Arms Earplugs version 2 are defective and failed to protect U.S. military members’ hearing from damage during gunfire and explosions. Elizabeth prepped defense witnesses for the first bellwether trial that concluded April 30 in Pensacola, Fla. She will be the lead trial attorney in the second, which was set to begin May 17. In re 3M Combat Arms Earplug Products Liability Litigation, 3:19md2885 (N.D. Fla., transferred April 3, 2019)

In California, she is co-lead counsel for developers Toll Brothers Inc. and Porter Ranch Development Co. suing Sempra Energy over the explosion of its natural gas storage well that spewed smelly pollutants into the air over Aliso Canyon for 3½ months in late 2015. Toll Brothers Inc. v. Sempra Energy, BC674622 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Sept. 1, 2017)

Finally, there is her critical and important pro bono case. Elizabeth represents parents in a proposed class action alleging that the Los Angeles Unified School District’s poor efforts at distance learning in the past year hurt students, particularly minority, special education, non-English-speaking and homeless students. The district, and the teachers’ union, “essentially just stopped providing basic education” to them, she said.

The harm to those students is continuing. “We’re asking for at least what students were getting while in-person instruction was occurring,” Elizabeth said. The plaintiffs now are conducting expedited discovery in order to request an injunction. Shaw v. Los Angeles Unified School District, 20STCV36489 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Sept. 24, 2020).

— Don DeBenedictis