Keker, Van Nest & Peters is pleased to announce that the firm has elected associates Justina Kahn Sessions and Ryan Wong to its partnership effective January 1, 2018.
“Tina and Ryan exemplify our firm’s values, dedication to innovative client work, collaborative team spirit and commitment to serving our communities. Not only are they outstanding attorneys who fiercely defend their clients, but they are great people. We are proud to welcome them to the partnership,” firm managing partner Steven Taylor said.
Tina Sessions has counseled individual clients and steered joint defense groups through complex patent disputes and high-stakes antitrust cases. She was part of the Keker team that helped Google settle an antitrust class action brought by employees of Adobe, Apple, Google, Lucasfilm, and Pixar who alleged “no cold call” agreements restrained the recruitment of high-tech employees. She also played key roles in obtaining summary judgment and early dismissals in patent cases for T-Mobile, Netflix, and others.
She maintains an active pro bono practice, and recently obtained a Ninth Circuit dismissal of an unprecedented lawsuit by an oil company seeking to silence environmental and Native Alaskan advocacy groups.
Tina earned her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School, and her B.A. in religious studies from Yale University. Following law school, she clerked for Judge Claire V. Eagan of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma and for Judge Mary Beck Briscoe of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Ryan Wong represents clients in a broad range of complex commercial and intellectual property litigation matters. He was part of the Keker trial team that successfully defended Arista from Cisco’s claims that Arista copied more than 500 commands used to configure network switches, and the Keker trial team that won a defense verdict for SanDisk in a multi-patent lawsuit filed by Round Rock Research. He was also part of the Keker team that secured the dismissal of a putative class action against Instacart by gig-economy shoppers who claimed they should be classified as employees rather than independent contractors, and he played a central role in obtaining early dismissals and favorable results for Comcast, TSMC, Lyft, and others.
Prior to law school, Ryan co-founded a Pasadena-based software company and helped design and develop a software system used by some of the largest businesses in the metals, construction, and distribution industries.
Ryan earned his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and his B.S. in biomedical and electrical engineering from the University of Southern California. Following law school, he clerked for Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.