Mary-Christine "M.C." Sungaila  

Mary-Christine “M.C.” Sungaila, a veteran appellate practitioner and historian of women in the law, moved to the Complex Appellate Litigation Group last year. She had previously headed the appellate groups at Buchalter and at Haynes and Boone, LLP.

Her new boutique bills itself as having launched in 2012 in San Francisco, “the hotbed of disrupters,” and the phrase could apply to Sungaila’s career. “You need to shake things up to get energized again,” she said.

A day or so after joining the firm, she got an urgent request from a trial lawyer she knows: Could Sungaila immediately jump into a trial as the lead counsel’s appellate wing-woman for strategy work? “It felt like an affirmation that I’d made a good move.”

Sungaila’s recent work includes submitting three amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court. They raise key issues regarding federal criminal statutes, the First Amendment and the attorney-client privilege.

And she continues as creator and host of the award-winning podcast “The Portia Project.” Now at 100 episodes, it chronicles the career histories of trailblazing women judges and lawyers.

“It’s a passion project I started during the pandemic,” she said. Her most recent subject is Justice Susan M. Carney of the Alaska Supreme Court. “By June, I’ll have interviewed justices from 32 state supreme courts.”

In her appellate work, Sungaila aided Jane Dorotik, who was wrongly convicted in 2001 of murdering her husband. Freed by a Loyola Law School innocence project campaign, she was set to be retried by San Diego county prosecutors — who denied her request that they fund her private counsel and insisted that she be represented by a public defender. The case raised important questions about access to counsel.

Sungaila’s appeal to the state Supreme Court was pending when — as jury selection was set to begin — prosecutors abruptly dismissed the case. Dorotik v. The Superior Court of San Diego County, S275639 (Cal. S. Ct., filed July 7, 2022).

“The prosecutors wanted her to take a local PD, but continuity of counsel is important,” Sungaila said. “By pressing forward we showed we were serious, and they looked at the case a little differently. She’s now free and clear.”

Sungaila, who advises law school clinics, led students at Loyola in filing an immigration asylum petition for a Nicaraguan man facing political persecution at home. After lengthy litigation, a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in 2022 revived his case. Molina v. Garland, 37 F. 4th 626 (9th Cir., op. filed June 13, 2022).

“So interesting to work for clinics,” Sungaila said. “So far, we’ve won every single case we’ve tackled.”

— John Roemer