Gay C. Grunfeld

Complex Litigation

San Francisco

Gay C. Grunfeld is a name partner and the managing partner at the trial and appellate boutique Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld LLP. She focuses her practice on complex litigation involving constitutional, civil rights, employment and commercial issues. She joined the firm in 2008.

Concern for vulnerable prison inmates has guided much of Grunfeld's work. She has won Daily Journal CLAY Awards for her efforts in that sector in 2016 and 2013.

Growing up in small-town Texas, Grunfeld said, she saw a lot of social injustice that propelled her into the law. At Columbia Law School, she studied under Jack Greenberg, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund director-counsel who succeeded Thurgood Marshall in the job, as he was litigating a landmark prison reform case that led to federal oversight of the Texas prison system. Ruiz v. Estelle, 503 F.Supp. 1265 (S.D. Tex., 1980).

"In law school I got to write a memo for Jack Greenberg for that case, and I saw how prison reform aligned with my interests," Grunfeld said. "But then life got in the way, and it wasn't until I joined this firm that I had the opportunity to work further on prison reform."

She joined the team litigating one of Rosen Bien's longest-running cases, a class action concerned with how the California prison system treats disabled inmates. Armstrong et al. v. Newsom, 4:94-cv-02307 (N.D. Cal., filed June 29, 1994).

In March 2024, Senior U.S. District Judge Claudia Ann Wilken of Oakland ordered state prison officials to make extensive changes in how they provide disability access to blind, low-vision and deaf class members seeking release at the Board of Parole Hearings.

"A truly great order from Judge Wilken," Grunfeld said. "It doesn't finish the case, but it's an important breakthrough with multiple aspects. For lifers, it's their only way out, and if they're denied, it may take another 15 years before they get another chance."

In another inmate rights case, Grunfeld lead a team seeking to reform health care San Diego County's jail system, which has one of the highest in-custody death rates in the U.S. Dunsmore et al. v. San Diego County Sheriff's Department et al., 3:20-cv-00406 (S.D. Cal., filed March 2, 2020).

"We've gotten the class certified, and we're discussing with the county a partial ADA settlement," Grunfeld said, referring to the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Grunfeld represents thousands of residents of Brookdale Senior Living facilities in California in a class action alleging that understaffing and accessibility barriers violate the ADA and other statutes. Stiner et al. v. Brookdale Senior Living Inc. et al., 4:17-cv-03962 (N.D. Cal., filed July 13, 2017).

"We defeated their motion to compel arbitration, and we're headed to trial in January 2025," Grunfeld said. "I love this job."

-- John Roemer