Anne Voigts

Voigts is an appellate law specialist and former federal prosecutor with degrees both from the London School of Economics and Columbia University School of Law, where she won the Wilfred Feinberg Prize for exceptional work in the area of federal courts.

She has worked as an extern for then-Judge Sonia M. Sotomayor on the 2d U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and as law clerk to both Judge Stephen R. Reinhardt and Justice John Paul Stevens. Voigts has argued more than 60 cases in federal and state appellate courts.

At the U.S. attorney’s shops in the Central District and the Northern District from 2005 to 2016, she did appeals and learned to argue on her feet, she said. “I went through rookie row doing general crimes. Trials were a huge learning curve, and for oral arguments I found how to distill a brief into its key issues and suggest to the judges how they should rule. That’s a skill that transcends civil and criminal matters.”

Voigts currently specializes in appellate work, constitutional and administrative law, antitrust class actions, criminal law, contractual disputes, data privacy and cybersecurity, health care and product liability cases.

In a closely-watched case, she represents health insurance technology company Benefyt Inc., in its effort to reverse class certification over claims it hired vendors that made unsolicited robocalls to consumers in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Moser v. Benefytt Inc., 19-56224 (9th Cir., filed Oct. 23, 2019).

Voigts said oral argument in the matter is set for May. The issue is over personal jurisdiction; she contends that the district court erred in finding her client had waived personal jurisdiction by failing to raise the question in a Rule 12(b) motion and that the class was therefore not properly certified.

“The Supreme Court has held that a class action requires specific personal jurisdiction for all members,” she said.

The outcome is important to companies conducting business across the U.S. who are subjected to nationwide class action claims brought in plaintiff-friendly forums where they are not incorporated and where their principal place of business is not located. Backing Voigts’ position is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has filed an amicus brief supporting Benefytt.

In another class certification challenge, Voigts has taken to the 11th Circuit claims over how courts analyze predominance in allowing class actions to proceed. Health Insurance Innovations Inc. v. Belin, 21-90009-D (11th Cir., filed Feb. 21, 2021).

Voigts said the cases suit her skills. “I loved working in the criminal law area, but I wanted to get to a place where I could do more arguing in court,” she said. “I still do some white collar criminal work in a number of cases were there’s an overlap—as in Computer Fraud and Abuse Act matters, for example.”

— John Roemer