Janette Wipper

Janette Wipper is a Partner and Firmwide Head of Litigation at Sanford Heisler Sharp. She worked with Sanford Heisler Sharp from 2006 to 2014 and then rejoined the firm in 2023. In between her work with the firm, Janette spent nearly a decade in public service enforcing civil rights laws on behalf of the federal and state government. In the Obama-Biden Administration, Janette served as Pacific Regional Director of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs until 2018 and then served as Chief Counsel of the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) from 2018 to 2022.

Both in the public and private sector, Janette has played an instrumental role in the most impactful civil rights litigation and remedies for women, including one of the largest gender discrimination class action jury verdicts of $253 million in Velez et al. v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals with the firm. Most recently, beginning in 2018, Janette represented two state agencies in their first systemic gender discrimination, sexual harassment and equal pay case against a video game company and then led their negotiations in late 2021 to obtain $100 million, plus $18 million in pay adjustments and injunctive relief, for approximately 2,000 women in DFEH and DLSE v. Riot Games. The case is the largest gender bias remedy obtained by the government in California’s history.

With the firm, Janette’s practice focuses on worker rights and investor rights, representing both individuals and classes. She has extensive experience working on equal pay matters, stock equity and incentive compensation, and statistical evidence of discrimination. Her cases have consistently covered complex and precedent-setting matters in the pharmaceutical, technology, and video game industries for over a decade, including:

• Litigating on behalf of a class of approximately 5,000 female pharmaceutical sales representatives who experienced systemic discrimination by a pharmaceutical company, resulting in a $253 million jury verdict
• Litigating on behalf of a class of approximately 2,000 female video game employees and contractors who experienced systemic discrimination and harassment by a video game company, resulting in a $118 million consent decree
• Litigating on behalf of a class of workers who were denied overtime wages by a telecommunications company, resulting in a $28 million court-approved settlement
• Litigating on behalf of a class of approximately 5,000 female pharmaceutical sales representatives, resulting in a $15 million court-approved settlement
• Litigating on behalf of state and local civil rights agencies who were denied access to pay data and workforce data used in systemic enforcement activities, resulting in a settlement with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that changed its policies to comply with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
• Litigating on behalf of a state government enforcement agency to secure the first California appellate court decision that held a state enforcement action cannot be compelled to private arbitration
• Litigating on behalf of a Dalit Indian who experienced discrimination and harassment at a technology company, resulting in many universities and companies explicitly banning caste discrimination for the first time across the country
• Litigating on behalf of a female intern who was sexually assaulted by a co-founder at a venture capital partnership, resulting in a $1.8 million settlement
• Litigating on behalf of a female farmworker who was sexually assaulted by a supervisor, resulting in a $750,000 settlement
• Negotiating on behalf of a male farmworker who was sexually assaulted by a supervisor, resulting in a $600,000 settlement
• Negotiating a multimillion dollar settlement on behalf of a female researcher who was wrongfully denied equal pay and stock equity in an acquisition at a bio-tech company
• Negotiating a multimillion settlement on behalf of human resources executive who was sexually assaulted by a C-suite executive
• Investigating on behalf of the federal government companies who receive federal taxpayer-funded contracts to ensure their compliance with equal pay and other equal employment opportunity standards under those federal contracts, resulting in millions of dollars and thousands of job opportunities for women, people of color and other workers who experienced discrimination

Janette began her legal career with national non-profit civil rights organizations such as the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the NAACP. Before law school, Janette worked with indigenous communities challenging oil contamination in the Amazon with Acción Ecológica. Janette received her law degree from Vermont Law School and her undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a member of the California and District of Columbia bar associations.