Felicia Gilbert is a Partner in Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight's Palo Alto and San Francisco offices, Chair of the firm’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, and a Co-Chair of the firm’s Discrimination and Harassment Practice Group.
Felicia has built a successful employment practice representing individuals and classes in discrimination matters, where she manages each case from the ground up and strives tirelessly to maximize her clients’ desired outcomes. A hallmark of her approach is a strong ability to build rapport and sustain the trust of her clients and colleagues while pushing every litigation matter and settlement to its limit with fearlessness and creativity. Felicia has successfully resolved numerous cases pre-suit, including matters against law firms, tech companies, pharmaceutical companies, academic institutions, and medical institutions.
Felicia has settled two individual employment discrimination cases against law firms – one involving sexual harassment claims, the other involving retaliation claims. She has made a significant contribution to the firm’s reputation as the go-to firm for plaintiffs looking to file claims against law firms where they once worked.
Felicia is lead counsel on Horn v. Kraft Heinz, a $30 million race discrimination, hostile work environment, retaliation, and wrongful termination civil action in the Eastern District of California against Kraft Heinz Foods Company on behalf of three former employees at the company’s Tulare, California dairy facility.
She also managed Julia Vega v. Honeywell International, an individual gender discrimination and retaliation case in the Southern District of California. She was also a member of the firm’s team representing Democratic lawmakers who filed a high-profile amicus brief backing Miami in two fair housing lawsuits in late 2016 – Bank of America Corp v. City of Miami and Wells Fargo & Co. v. City of Miami.
Since joining Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight, Felicia has been recognized as a National Trial Lawyers Top 40 Under 40 Civil Plaintiff Trial Lawyers. Profiles in Diversity Journal also recognized her among its Women Worth Watching in Leadership. Felicia was recently named a Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Employment & Civil Rights Lawyer and has been profiled in Bloomberg Law’s “Leading Questions” column.
Before joining Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight in 2016, Felicia was an associate at Morrison & Foerster, LLP, where her practice involved a variety of complex commercial litigation matters in both federal and state courts. During her tenure there, she was a member of the trial team named 2013 “Attorneys of the Year” in civil rights law by California Lawyer Magazine for representing the family of an unarmed man fatally shot by a police officer in a Section 1983 federal civil rights lawsuit against a California municipality.
While at Columbia Law School, Felicia served on the Journal of Law & Social Problems and as a Teaching Fellow on the Columbia Law School Moot Court Editorial Board. As part of Columbia Law School’s Child Advocacy Clinic, she helped design a research protocol for adolescent representation and provided legal assistance to young adults transitioning out of foster care. She also interned with the Criminal Appeals Bureau of the Legal Aid Society.
Updated Oct 2024
