Theane Evangelis

Theane Evangelis is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. Theane Evangelis is Co-Chair of Gibson Dunn’s global Litigation Practice Group and one of the country’s leading litigators. She represents clients in federal and state courts throughout the nation in a wide spectrum of cases and has argued and won high-profile, groundbreaking appeals across the country, including in the Supreme Court of the United States. Theane’s achievements have earned her accolades from leading national legal publications. 

Theane is also a member of the Appellate, Class Actions, Labor and Employment, Media, Entertainment, and Technology, and Crisis Management Practice Groups. She joined Gibson Dunn after serving as a law clerk to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor during October Term 2004 and as an associate with Ziffren Brittenham, a Los Angeles law firm specializing in entertainment and media transactions. Before clerking for Justice O’Connor, Theane was a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Law360 named Theane as an “Employment MVP” and has previously recognized her three times as a “Class Action MVP.” She is recognized by the National Law Journal as a 2023 “Employment Law Trailblazer.” Since 2020, she is ranked by Chambers USA, for Appellate Litigation. Benchmark Litigation named Theane among the “Top 10 Women in Litigation,” named her a California Labor & Employment Litigation “Attorney of the Year” for her lead role in a variety of important class actions, and named her to its “Top 50 Labor & Employment litigators list.” Theane is also recognized by Lawdragon as one of “500 Leading Litigators in America,” “500 Leading Corporate Employment Lawyers,” and “500 Leading Global Litigators.” According to the Los Angeles Business Journal, which named Theane on its 2022 list of “Leaders of Influence” for Labor & Employment as well as a 2021 Labor and Employment “Lawyer of the Year”; she “has emerged as a go-to class action lawyer for businesses whose business models are under attack.” The Daily Journal has named Theane to its annual list of “Top 100 Lawyers” in California and credited her with “keeping the wheels of the gig economy turning” from 2021 - 2024 and named her as a “Top Woman Lawyer in California” for 2016 - 2024. In its annual Top Verdicts of California 2018 feature, the Daily Journal recognized Theane for three of her litigation successes where she was able to obtain record verdicts for clients Uber, Kimberly-Clark, and Grubhub. Theane was also recognized by Best Lawyers as the 2023 Appellate Lawyer of the Year, selected by her peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America© in the field of Appellate Practice from 2014 - 2025, and was also named “Los Angeles Appellate Lawyer of the Year” by Best Lawyers®. Theane received the 2022 distinguished Amicus Service Award from the International Municipal Lawyers Association (IMLA) for her service to the IMLA Legal Advocacy program. In a published article by The Am Law Litigation Daily, Theane shared her experience of “handling three oral arguments in four cases for gig economy clients on back-to-back days in two separate circuit courts” in 2022.

In July 2024, Theane was selected by The American Lawyer as the “Litigator of the Week,” in recognition of her victory before the Supreme Court of the United States in a landmark case with national implications on behalf of the City of Grant Pass, Oregon, which held that the Eighth Amendment does not prevent the enforcement of camping regulations on public property. Theane was previously recognized as a “Litigator of the Week” for her 2018 victory on behalf of Grubhub in the first federal case regarding the classification of workers in the “gig” economy. In 2018 and 2019, she was named as one of Los Angeles’ Most Influential Women Attorneys by the Los Angeles Business Journal, an honor designated for only 75 of the city’s most influential women attorneys. Theane was named by Euromoney Legal Media Group as the 2021 Litigation Lawyer of Year at the Americas Women in Business Law Awards. In addition, Theane has been recognized by The Recorder as one of California’s “Lawyers on the Fast Track,” and was selected as one of “Greek America’s Forty under 40” by the Greek America Foundation. Southern California Super Lawyers named her as a “Super Lawyer” in Los Angeles Magazine in the category of Appellate Law, and she was recognized as one of the “25 Most Intriguing Greek Americans of 2010” by Greek America Magazine for her work challenging Proposition 8.

Recent representative matters include:

• Winning a landmark ruling in the Supreme Court of the United States upholding the City of Grants Pass, Oregon’s public-camping laws in a case of widespread importance for local governments across the country grappling with the homelessness crisis. Assembled a broad coalition of hundreds of amici, including California Governor Gavin Newsom and dozens of cities and states across the country, and presented oral argument before the Supreme Court on behalf of Grants Pass. The case was widely reported in the national media;
• Serving as lead counsel to Uber in a series of private and public lawsuits across the country alleging misclassification of drivers who use the Uber app;
• Serving as lead counsel for Reddit, winning the first appellate ruling in the country in the Ninth Circuit interpreting the FOSTA amendments to section 230;
• Served as lead counsel, arguing and winning appeals in several federal circuits across the country and in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, on the applicability of the Section 1 transportation worker exemption to the Federal Arbitration Act;
• Serving as lead counsel for plaintiffs in a constitutional challenge to California’s worker classification law AB5;
• Defeating a lawsuit by opponents of Proposition 22, a ballot initiative to protect worker independence in California, that attempted to silence Uber’s communications about the initiative on the eve of the election;
• Served as lead appellate counsel and obtaining a landmark, precedent-setting opinion and reversal of a nine-figure wage-and-hour class action judgment against a leading retailer;
• Served as lead counsel to a leading retailer in the Ninth Circuit and obtaining interlocutory review under Rule 23(f) and reversal of class certification;
• Served as lead counsel for Uber in the Ninth Circuit and obtaining the first federal circuit decision defeating application of the Federal Arbitration Act’s Section 1 transportation worker exemption to rideshare drivers;
• Serving as lead counsel to Uber in the California Supreme Court in Adolph v. Uber, the first case regarding arbitrability of PAGA claims in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Viking River Cruises v. Moriana;
• Representing actor Ashley Judd against Harvey Weinstein seeking redress for the career-changing harm Mr. Weinstein caused when he defamed Judd to filmmakers in retaliation against Ms. Judd for having rejected Mr. Weinstein’s sexual advances;
• Winning a landmark trial victory on behalf of Grubhub in the first federal case ruling that a driver-partner who used Grubhub’s app was an independent contractor, after preemptively defeating class certification;
• Serving as lead counsel for the City of Grants Pass, Oregon, in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in defending the constitutionality of the City’s ban on public camping in a case of widespread importance for local governments grappling with the homelessness crisis;
• Successfully presented argument in the Sixth Circuit on behalf of Uber Technologies, Inc., in a proposed overtime class action brought by two drivers. The three-judge panel unanimously found that two Michigan men, who accused Uber of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act and Michigan labor law by classifying them as independent contractors and denying them wages and other benefits, were bound to arbitrate their claims;
• Representing Uber and persuading the Ninth Circuit to grant interlocutory review of a class certification order, and obtaining decisions by the Ninth Circuit enforcing Uber’s arbitration agreements and decertifying a class of hundreds of thousands of drivers;
• Securing the complete reversal from the Ninth Circuit of a class action judgment against Kimberly-Clark involving claims of fraud and unfair competition, after obtaining a 95% reduction from the Central District of California of the nearly half-a-billion-dollar verdict;
• Presenting argument on behalf of Yamaha and obtaining a published, precedential opinion from the Ninth Circuit dismissing a nationwide class action and limiting a manufacturer’s duty to disclose safety-related latent defects under California law;
• Persuading the Supreme Court of the United States to reverse the certification of the largest employment class action in American history;
• Representing the plaintiffs from trial to the Supreme Court of the United States in the historic federal constitutional challenge striking down California’s ban on same-sex marriage, Proposition 8;
• Serving as lead counsel for the City of Boise in the U.S. Supreme Court in defending the constitutionality of the City’s ban on public camping in Martin v. City of Boise;
• Successfully defended Reese Witherspoon and Draper James in a nationwide putative consumer class action;
• Obtaining summary judgment in a breach of contract case on behalf of David Letterman’s production company, Worldwide Pants;
• Presenting argument on behalf of Hewlett-Packard Company and obtaining a precedent-setting, published opinion from the Ninth Circuit regarding a manufacturer’s duty to disclose latent defects under California law;
• Obtaining a unanimous victory for Standard Fire in the Supreme Court of the United States in a case involving the proper interpretation of the Class Action Fairness Act;
• Obtaining reversal of a nearly $90 million judgment in a wage-and-hour class action in the California Court of Appeal;
• Serving as appellate counsel to Toyota Motor Company in the multidistrict litigation arising out of drivers’ reports of “unintended acceleration” in Toyota vehicles and persuading the Ninth Circuit to grant interlocutory review of whether “no injury” class-action plaintiffs lack Article III standing;
• Representing California public school students bringing in a landmark constitutional challenge to state tenure laws that prevent school administrators from hiring and retaining the most effective teachers;
• Persuading the Ninth Circuit to grant interlocutory review of several class certification decisions;
• Winning dismissal with prejudice of a putative nationwide consumer class action filed in federal court against a technology company, which was subsequently affirmed by the Ninth Circuit;
• Securing a dismissal, with prejudice, of a putative nationwide consumer class action filed in federal court against an internet company;
• Obtaining decertification of a major wage-and-hour class action in state court;
• Winning a dismissal, with prejudice, in favor of Starbucks Corporation in a contractual dispute with singer-songwriter Carly Simon;
• Obtaining reversal on constitutional grounds of a significant punitive damage award in state court; and
• Representing ABM in a series of putative wage-and-hour class actions in California state and federal courts.

Theane graduated summa cum laude from New York University School of Law in 2003 and received the University Graduation Prize, which is awarded to the student with the highest grade point average in the graduating class. During law school, she was a Butler and Pomeroy Scholar and served as Managing Editor of the New York University Law Review.

Prior to law school, Theane served as a legislative assistant to former U.S. Representative Max Sandlin, for whom she handled financial services, technology, and foreign affairs legislation. She received a B.S. in Foreign Service, cum laude, from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.

Theane is a member of the California bar and is admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Courts of Appeal across the country, and all federal courts in California. Theane serves on the board of the California Women’s Law Center and The Hellenic Initiative. Theane is a Trustee of the Global Greek Film Initiative and is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the NYU Law School. Theane was also appointed by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to the Los Angeles County Blue Ribbon Commission on Homelessness.

Capabilities

• Class Actions
• Appellate and Constitutional Law
• Crisis Management
• Labor and Employment
• Litigation
• Media, Entertainment, and Technology
• Technology Litigation

Credentials

Education:

• New York University - 2003 Juris Doctor
• Georgetown University - 1997 Bachelor of Science

Admissions:

• California Bar

Clerkships:

• US Supreme Court, Hon. Sandra Day O'Connor, 2004 - 2005
• US Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, Hon. Alex Kozinski, 2003 - 2004