Paul Hastings Adds Leading Complex Commercial Litigator in California

CENTURY CITY, Calif. (May 30, 2023) – Paul Hastings LLP announced today that preeminent complex commercial litigator Susan Leader has joined the firm as a partner in Century City.

“Susan’s reputation as an elite high-stakes commercial litigator with deep experience across a variety of sectors will further elevate the prominence of our litigation practices in California and nationally,” said firm Chair Frank Lopez. “Her addition also is a further testament to our commitment to serve clients on their most complex and important matters.”

A first-chair litigator in more than a dozen trials and international arbitrations, Leader focuses her practice on the most complex commercial matters and class actions in a variety of venues, including federal and state courts. She joins from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she was firmwide co-chair of the complex litigation practice group.

“I am thrilled to join Paul Hastings,” said Leader. “The firm’s depth and breadth across all areas of litigation, coupled with its upward trajectory and ambitions, will be a benefit to my clients while also enabling me to take advantage of synergies between the firm and my practice.”

Leader represents clients across diverse industries, including entertainment and media, hospitality, renewable energy, and funds. Her work spans a wide variety of commercial litigation matters, employment disputes, and violations relating to franchise law, the False Claims Act, RICO, and the Sherman Act. Both The Legal 500 and Los Angeles Business Journal have recognized Leader and she is included in The Hollywood Reporter’s "Power Lawyers 2023: Hollywood’s Top 100 Attorneys List.”

Leader’s move reflects Paul Hastings’ continued investment in its global litigation team, which includes recent additions IP litigators Rudy Kim in Palo Alto and Doug Sawyer in Chicago, Investigations and SEC enforcement partner Brad Bondi in Washington, D.C., securities and commercial litigator Jennifer Conn in New York, commercial litigator Josh Berman in New York, and international arbitration partner Garreth Wong in London.

About Paul Hastings

With widely recognized elite teams in finance, mergers & acquisitions, private equity, restructuring and special situations, litigation, employment, and real estate, Paul Hastings is a premier law firm providing intellectual capital and superior execution globally to the world’s leading investment banks, asset managers, and corporations.