Dawn Sestito

Employment Litigation

Century City

Dawn Sestito is the managing partner of O'Melveny & Myers LLP's Los Angeles office and a member of the firm's policy committee and its executive committee. Her litigation practice focuses on cases involving environmental and natural resources, energy, advertising, marketing and branding and universities.

She joined the firm in 2001 after graduating from UC Berkeley School of Law, where she was a member of the Order of the Coif.

"I'm a lifer," she said of her work at O'Melveny "I actually started as a summer associate in 1998, then after law school I clerked for a year," referring to her stint in the chambers of U.S. District Judge George H. King of Los Angeles, now retired. "A very smart, fair and thoughtful man," she said. "It was a great way to start a career."

Since then, Sestito has won a Daily Journal Top Lawyers Under 40 award and a Top Verdict award for her successful defense of ExxonMobil Corp. in 2022 in turning back a proposed antitrust class action over alleged price-fixing in the California gasoline market. Her team worked with lawyers from seven other firms representing co-defendants.

At one point in that litigation, Sestito argued and won a motion to strike certain expert opinions, reducing potential damages by billions of dollars. Persian Gulf Inc. v. BP West Coast Products LLC et al., 3:15-cv-01749 (S.D., Cal., filed Aug. 6, 2015).

Sestito has had ExxonMobil as a client for almost 20 years. Many of her matters are long-running potential class actions, such as one regarding allegedly harmful emissions from a refinery in Torrance. Goldstein et al. v. ExxonMobil Corp., et al., 2:17-cv-02477 (C.D. Cal., filed March 30, 2017).

Sestito defeated class certification on the plaintiffs' first motion. A second, significantly narrowed class certification motion was granted -- but then Sestito and her team learned that the lead plaintiff had sold his home near the refinery and moved, undercutting his status as an affected class member.

"The judge invited us to brief our concerns over the changed status of the named plaintiff," Sestito said. "The plaintiffs' process of swapping him out for another raised concerns." The class was decertified for a second time; the only claim against ExxonMobil was dismissed with prejudice. The plaintiffs' appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in in the briefing stage. Navarro v. ExonMobil Corp., 23-3274 (9th Cir., filed March 28, 2023).

Sestito took over as managing partner in Los Angeles just as COVID-19 emerged in 2020. "It was an interesting time, trying to keep people connected," she said, noting that she'd encouraged the online swapping of family photos and other techniques for mutual support.

In June 2024, Sestito was ready to move the Los Angeles offices into newly-refurbished space in their building. "It's still a great, challenging job," she said. "No two days are the same."

-- John Roemer