Sophie Hood specializes in high-stakes, complex litigation. She represents clients in civil and criminal cases involving intellectual property, fraud, breach of contract, antitrust, and securities disputes. Ms. Hood’s clients – whether individuals, start-ups, or established companies – face challenging legal problems and have diverse goals. She works to understand their unique situations, and she crafts creative strategies to navigate the best path forward. She has helped many clients win motions to dismiss, ending cases before they even start in earnest. She has helped other clients win resounding victories at summary judgment, and defended those wins on appeal. And she always positions her clients to succeed at trial, or to avoid litigation by getting the best settlement possible. She empathizes with her clients and fights for them every step of the way.
Ms. Hood also devotes her time to high-impact pro bono matters, with a focus on reproductive rights and immigration.
Prior to joining Keker, Van Nest & Peters, Ms. Hood clerked for Chief Judge Sidney Thomas of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She was also a fellow at the Information Law Institute of New York University, where she studied privacy and algorithms. Before attending law school, Ms. Hood worked as an analyst in Morgan Stanley’s Institutional Securities division and as a research associate at Harvard Business School. Ms. Hood speaks Spanish and serves on the board of the Children’s Council of San Francisco.
Perry v. MLB Advanced Media, L.P.
We successfully compelled arbitration and obtained dismissal of all claims in this purported class action alleging false advertising and unfair competition related to the MLB.TV streaming service. The plaintiff also claimed that MLB’s commercial arbitration provision was unconscionable. Based on our briefing, the court held that the provision was fully enforceable and not unconscionable.
Company Representative v. Microchip Company
We defended a federal court action accusing our client of conspiring with the former CEO of one of its customers to sell sensitive, space-grade microchips illegally to China. The plaintiff brought claims for civil conspiracy, breach of fiduciary duty and negligence. We won summary judgment on all claims.
Plaintiff v. Venture Capital Firm and Firm Partner
On behalf of a venture capital firm and its general partners, we defeated aggressive litigation filed by one of the firm’s portfolio companies. Our client had invested in the plaintiff company more than 25 years prior to the litigation, and was the plaintiff’s largest minority shareholder. The case began when our client exercised its contractual right to compel the plaintiff’s IPO so it could finally liquidate its investment. The plaintiff retaliated by accusing a firm partner who had exercised his stock options of breach of contract, conversion, and fraud. After successfully getting the case moved from Orange County to San Mateo, we battled with the plaintiff over the sufficiency of its pleadings and defeated a succession of attempts by the plaintiff to uncover in discovery our clients’ confidential and irrelevant business strategies concerning its investment. Ultimately, despite repeated efforts by the plaintiff to expand and delay the litigation, we convinced the San Mateo Superior Court to grant our clients’ motion for summary judgment in its entirety.
Prolifiq Software Inc. v. Veeva Systems
We defended Veeva Systems from patent infringement allegations brought by its competitor in the Northern District of California. The patents relate to the creation of email messages using multiple layers and/or content available on servers. We successfully narrowed the scope of the case from five patents to two, and further narrowed the case when the court agreed one of the claims was invalid. After that, we secured a very successful settlement for a fraction of the original demand.
08/12/2022
Litigators at Keker, Van Nest & Peters land runners-up honors in the case they’re handling for the PGA Tour involving antitrust claims brought by suspended golfers who have joined the professional golf tour’s upstart rivals at the LIV Golf Invitational Series. Read more
08/09/2022
A federal judge in California ruled Tuesday that three golfers who joined Saudi-backed LIV Golf will not be able to compete in the PGA Tour’s postseason. Read more
January 21, 2022
This 2-day program, 1/24/22 and 1/25/22, qualifies for 6 hours of general CLE credit, 1 hour of ethics credit, and 1 hour of elimination of bias credit.
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January 04, 2021
Keker, Van Nest & Peters is pleased to announce that the firm elevated Julia Allen and Sophie Hood to its partnership effective January 1, 2021. Read more
April 26, 2019
On April 26 District Court Judge Edward Chen granted a statewide preliminary injunction in Essential Access Health v. Azar, et al., a lawsuit challenging the Trump Administration’s sweeping changes to the federal Title X family planning program. Read more
March 22, 2019
Representing Essential Access Health and Dr. Melissa Marshall, Keker, Van Nest & Peters filed a motion for a preliminary injunction seeking to prevent the Department of Health and Human Services from enforcing sweeping changes to the Title X Family Planning Program. Read more
March 04, 2019
Following the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ finalization of sweeping changes to the Title X Family Planning Program, Keker, Van Nest & Peters has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Essential Access Health and Dr. Melissa Marshall, a family medicine doctor practicing at a Title X-funded health center in Yolo County, California. Read more
08/08/2014
Gene Paige, Christa Anderson and their KVN team convinced a federal judge to invalidate patents as indefinite because they do not provide information about what falls outside the claims. Read more