Cameron W. Fox

Fox is a partner and the chair of Paul Hastings' Los Angeles employment law department, where she focuses on employee mobility and trade secrets cases along with workplace retaliation, whistleblower, #MeToo and traditional labor litigation.

She said her firm's L.A. office is re-opening gradually. "We're starting to be back in, and we expect more of us to arrive again in September. Remote work works, but in a creative field like the law our best achievements are reached when we're all together. It's the chance conversations in the hallway that spark ideas and better results. No matter how good video platforms become, they can't do that."

In late May she prevailed for client Google Inc. after two years of litigation over a plaintiff group's effort to collect $1.3 million in catalyst attorney fees on PAGA claims a state court had previously dismissed on federal preemption grounds. Doe v. Google Inc., CGC-16-556034 (S.F. Super. Ct., filed Dec. 20, 2016).

"It's a full win for us, and I was thrilled," Fox said "They said they were going to appeal, but two days before their opening brief was due they folded. We felt they had a major uphill battle ahead of them."

The underlying case challenged the legality of two Google employment agreements: an Adult Content Liability Release requiring workers to agree to clear Google from liability for exposure to sensitive adult content, and a non-disclosure agreement. After Google changed its policies, the plaintiffs alleged that their suit had been the causation or catalyst for the change that merited fees.

The trial court reasoned that no fees were appropriate because the plaintiffs could not show that their claims were the cause for Google making workplace changes. "It's an interesting issue, because it's a novel argument in employment law," Fox said. "You more often see applications for catalyst fees in environmental cases. As the court held, a lot depends on the way the case is positioned at the very beginning."

As San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo wrote in her order denying the fees, "Collectively, Google's evidence overcomes the presumption that Plaintiffs' lawsuit was a substantial factor in Google's decision to change its confidentiality policies."

In an ongoing case, Fox represents the University of Southern California in defending a suit by a business school applicant who was offered admission into a part-time MBA program but had it revoked when the school learned about his inappropriate and offensive conduct as disclosed in his Facebook account. Barron v. University of Southern California, 2:20-cv-09898 (C.D. Cal., filed Oct. 28, 2020).

"This is an issue likely to come up more and more regarding employment in academia," Fox said. "My client's decision was based not on speech but on conduct revealed by the applicant's media posts." She obtained early dismissal of nearly half of the Plaintiff's claims, after which he abandoned the case entirely.

"My practice touches on so many interesting areas of law," Fox said. "I love what I do."

-- John Roemer