Amy Zeman

Zeman is a partner at the plaintiff-side Gibbs Law boutique specializing in consumer protection, sexual assault litigation and defective drugs claims.

Over the past two years she has secured a $73 million settlement for sexual assault survivors, prosecuted an innovative suit on behalf of fertility clinic patients whose genetic material was destroyed in a cryo-preservation tank failure and served in a court-appointed leadership role in a mass action coordinating claims on behalf of 18,000 boys who suffered male breast growth after having been prescribed an antipsychotic medication.

The art of compassionately listening to clients is a large part of her work. In one interview, Zeman summed up how she translated the strong feeling of fertility clinic clients who lost frozen eggs and embryos into effective lawyering: “It’s such an emotionally charged issue that the heartbreak we hear informs how we keep fighting.”

In May she’s scheduled to represent five of the fertility clinic clients at a bellwether personal injury trial in federal court in San Francisco targeting the manufacturer of the failed tank. In March 2018 the clinic discovered that the tank—which contained 1,500 eggs and 2,500 embryos—had lost liquid nitrogen.

Not long after, Zeman and colleagues sued on behalf of 600 clinic patients with claims against Pacific Fertility Center, the corporation that owns it and Chart Inc., the tank maker. In re Pacific Fertility Center Litigation, 3:18-cv-01586 (N.D. Cal., filed Mar. 13, 2018).

“This will be five households, the original named plaintiffs, bundled together in a single trial,” Zeman said. “This trial will give us the first outcome of the litigation.” A second trial is set for November.

In March, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley denied Chart Inc.’s motion for summary judgment, despite Chart’s argument that the plaintiffs failed to provide sufficient expert opinion on their claims and that the reasons for the tank’s failure were technical and “beyond the ken of an ordinary juror.”

Zeman was upbeat about her chances. “We feel good going in. We were buoyed by the ruling on summary judgment and on our Daubert motions. Our clients will have an opportunity to let the jury hear how the loss of their ability to bring life into the world affected them.”

In November 2020, Zeman and colleagues announced a $73 million settlement with UCLA over class action claims against the school for the misconduct of a consulting gynecologist, James Heaps, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of sexual assault on former patients. A.B. v. Regents of the University of California, 2:20-cv-09555 (C.D. Cal., filed Oct. 19, 2020).

“It was a tough negotiation, though there was some interest on UCLA’s part to do right by the class,” Zeman said. “Every settlement requires creative thinking to let class members feel there has been accountability.”

— John Roemer