Jennifer Bennett
415.573.0336 | 505 Montgomery Street, Suite 625, San Francisco, CA 94111
Jennifer Bennett is a principal at Gupta Wessler LLP, where she heads the firm’s San Francisco office and focuses on cutting-edge public interest and plaintiffs’-side appellate litigation. Her practice covers a wide range of issues including workers’ rights, consumer protection, civil rights, constitutional law, and government transparency.
Jennifer regularly litigates before the U.S. Supreme Court, including recently arguing and winning three landmark victories on behalf of workers challenging forced arbitration in Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries, Saxon v. Southwest and New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira. Her victory in New Prime was the first case in over a decade in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the party challenging arbitration.
In addition to her U.S. Supreme Court litigation, Jennifer regularly handles appeals in both state and federal court on behalf of workers or consumers fighting forced arbitration and other barriers to access to justice. She also represents journalists, media organizations, and nonprofits challenging government secrecy, including winning a groundbreaking case in the Ninth Circuit vindicating the public’s right to access court records. And she regularly represents plaintiffs in civil rights cases involving difficult or novel legal issues.
Jennifer’s Supreme Court and appellate advocacy has been recognized with several national awards, including the Pound Civil Justice Institute’s Appellate Advocacy Award (two years in row), the American Association for Justice’s F. Scott Baldwin Award, Public Justice’s Change Maker Award, and the National Consumer Law Center’s Rising Star Award. Jennifer also co-teaches the Supreme Court Clinic at Harvard Law School.
Jennifer clerked for the Honorable Marsha Berzon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Honorable Jesse Furman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and the Honorable Vince Chhabria of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, and earned her J.D. from Yale Law School and her B.A. from Yale University. Before joining Gupta Wessler, she was an attorney at Public Justice in Oakland, California, where she also focused on cutting-edge public interest appellate litigation.
Jennifer routinely speaks to audiences across the country, as well as the media, on forced arbitration, Section 230, government transparency, qualified immunity, and other issues related to public interest law or class actions. Her cases have been featured in national media outlets, including the Washington Post and the New York Times.
