Nanci E. Nishimura

As a 20-year veteran of complex civil litigation at Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, LLP, Nanci E. Nishimura has established herself as a powerful voice for clients and the community.

Her current class actions accuse Google LLC of privacy violations and a pipeline company of impacting commercial fishermen by spilling crude oil off Huntington Beach. In her community-based pro bono work, she is co-chair of the Leaders Forum, a White House initiative seeking to boost Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (AANHPI).

She's working on a documentary about the negative treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II and that shameful episode's connection to the anti- Asian attacks plaguing society today.

"We are all immigrants or the children of immigrants in our country," Nishimura noted in a recent opinion article. "Violence and repressive conduct against any of our citizens, including immigrants, must be stopped."

When she visits the White House for an Asian American Month celebration in May, Nishimura said in mid-April, she hopes also to lobby President Biden's judicial appointments team for more district court judges.

"When Biden came into office, a lot of judges took senior status to clear the way for more appointments, but they're not happening fast enough," Nishimura said.

She added that the stress of too few judges has slowed her Right to Privacy Act class action against Google for allegedly selling user data. In re Google RTB Consumer Privacy Litigation, 21-cv-02155 (N.D. Cal., filed March 26, 2021).

"We were before Judge Lucy Koh, but then we got reassigned to Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, and she's working hard, but her docket is overloaded. We want to proceed with discovery and prepare our class certification, but things are moving slowly."

In October 2021, Nishimura sued on behalf of lobster fishermen who operate out of Dana Point Harbor and whose trapping season was set to start just days after crude oil spewed from a pipeline off the coast. Schoonover v. Amplify Energy Corp., et al., 8-21-cv- 01694 (C.D. Cal., filed Oct. 12, 2021).

"Fishermen are hardworking folks who respect and rely on Mother Nature for their livelihoods to take care of their families," Nishimura said. "They don't deserve to be the victims of a devastating and preventable oil spill disaster--all for oil company profits."

Nishimura said her Leaders Forum work--inspired by Obama Administration efforts to promote the collective power of AANHPI--remains a priority. "We must appoint people of diversity to serve the government at the C-suite level. That's what I'm trying to get across. We work with grass-roots organizations to educate and implement anti-hate programs."

- John Roemer