Sarah R. London

At this point in her career, Sarah R. London is primarily focusing on litigating for children, parents and people who want to be parents.

She is co-lead counsel for plaintiffs in the nationwide e-cigarette fraud and injury litigation over Juul vaping product. Juul settled most of the cases in December 2022, and its financial and marketing partner Atria largely settled in May last year. In Re: Juul Labs Inc., Marketing, Sales Practices, and Products Liability Litigation, 3:19-md-02913 (N.D. Cal., filed Oct. 2, 2019).

Previously, she also was co-lead class counsel representing parents whose stored eggs and embryos were destroyed when a Pacific Fertility Center storage tank developed a leak. That litigation also is largely settled. In re Pacific Fertility Center Litigation, 3:18-cv-01586 (N.D. Cal., filed March 6, 2018).

Drawing on that experience, London now is suing a company that biopsies embryos to test for genetic problems. The parents in the seven lawsuits she has filed so far allege that contaminates effectively ruined their tests.

“As a result of getting no results, the families have been put in a very difficult, and in some cases catastrophic, positions” emotionally and mentally, she said. They are left “far worse off than if they had never undergone the testing to begin with.”

London said the litigation is important “because these are very real victims with very real harms in an ever-evolving and changing technological landscape.” A.P. v. Natera Inc., 21-CIV-06237 (San Mateo Super. Ct., filed Nov. 18, 2021).

In a different type of case, London was appointed early last month to be a co-lead counsel representing passengers who were sexually assaulted by their Uber drivers. In Re: Uber Technologies, Inc. Passenger Sexual Assault Litigation, 3:23-md-03084 (N.D. Cal., filed Oct. 4, 2023).

“It’s a very exciting case and I think one of great public importance,” London said. “We’re in a world now where it’s all but impossible to avoid having to use a service like Uber to get around in our modern cities.”

Right now, the litigation leadership is to “really dig to the bottom of what did Uber know, when did they know it and what did they do … this rampant problem.”

— Don DeBenedictis