Zainab Ramahi represents clients in all facets of commercial litigation. Prior to joining Keker, Van Nest & Peters, Zainab served as a law clerk to Judges Richard Paez and Dorothy Nelson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She also previously clerked for Judge Richard Andrews of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.
Zainab earned her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and her Bachelor of Knowledge Integration from the University of Waterloo. During law school, she served as a Coblentz Civil Rights Research Fellow at Berkeley’s Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, a law clerk with Palestine Legal, and teaching assistant for Berkeley’s legal research and writing program.
We won a rare judgment as a matter of law fending off a $450 million trade secret claim against Veeva Systems in New York federal court. Competitor Medidata Solutions sued Veeva alleging that several of its former employees had access to the company’s trade secrets, retained Medidata’s confidential documents, and used that information to unfairly compete with Medidata when they left to join Veeva. We convinced the court that Medidata’s “trade secrets” were vague business concepts at best, that Veeva never used Medidata trade secrets in developing its software, and that no reasonable jury could find in its favor. The Court granted judgment as a matter of law for Veeva at the end of Medidata’s case-in-chief.
We serve as co-counsel with the ACLU foundations of California in a putative class action challenging unlawful immigration enforcement practices by the U.S. Border Patrol in the Eastern District of California. The lawsuit alleges that Border Patrol has engaged in a practice of unlawfully stopping and arresting long-term county residents based on skin color and appearance and then coercing them to accept deportation without due process. In April 2025, we obtained a preliminary injunction from the district court requiring federal agents to comply with constitutional and statutory standards of reasonable suspicion and probable cause when making stops and arrests within the district.
Yesterday, a federal district court ruled that the U.S. Border Patrol violated a prior court order during a July 2025 immigration operation in Sacramento, finding that agents conducted stops without reasonable suspicion and failed to properly document their actions. The court granted a motion to enforce a preliminary injunction in United Farm Workers v. Noem, reinforcing constitutional limits on Border Patrol operations in California’s Eastern District. Read more
A federal judge ruled that the U.S. Border Patrol violated a court order during a July 2025 operation at a Sacramento Home Depot, finding that agents unlawfully detained 11 day laborers without reasonable suspicion, Law360 reported. Read more
A federal judge has refused to halt litigation challenging U.S. Border Patrol enforcement tactics in California’s Central Valley, allowing the case to proceed despite the government’s pending appeal. The lawsuit alleges that Border Patrol agents engaged in unconstitutional stops and arrests during immigration enforcement operations far from the border, as reported in the Daily Journal. Read more
At Keker, Van Nest & Peters, pro bono work is an integral part of our firm. From challenging illegal mass deportation tactics, to pushing for criminal justice reform, to fighting for the rights of individuals and families, our attorneys take up causes that encapsulate our belief that lawyers have a duty to protect the rule of law and ensure access to justice. Read more
A federal judge in California issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday requiring the Border Patrol to honor laws regarding reasonable suspicion and probable cause in the wake of a January operation that saw agents make scores of warrantless arrests in and around Bakersfield. Several media outlets reported on the judge’s order. Read more
In a win for civil rights amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign, a federal district court in California issued a preliminary injunction barring U.S. Border Patrol from using stop-and-arrest practices that violate federal law and the U.S. Constitution. Keker, Van Nest & Peters and the ACLU argued the successful motion on behalf of the United Farm Workers and plaintiffs. Read more
The suit alleges “Operation Return to Sender” was a fishing expedition that indiscriminately targeted scores of residents, including U.S. citizens, through racial profiling. Read more
Two Keker, Van Nest & Peters teams were named among The Am Law Litigation Daily's Litigators of the Week Runners-Up for their back-to-back trial wins. Read more
Circumstantial evidence of misappropriation won't cut it in the absence of specificity, he rules in life sciences SaaS case. It's a win for Keker, Van Nest & Peters. Read more
Veeva Systems Inc on Friday persuaded a judge to throw out a lawsuit by pharmaceutical software rival Medidata Solutions Inc alleging it stole trade secrets worth hundreds of millions of dollars, representatives for the companies said. Read more
The Muslim Ban Cases: A Lost Opportunity for the Court and a Lesson for the Future, 108 Cal Law Rev. (April 2020).
Secondary Boycotts in American Labor Law: An application to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law (Spring 2019)
Veiled Muslim Women: Challenging Patriarchy in the Legal System, Berkeley Journal of Law, Gender, and Justice (Spring 2018) (Selected for the 2017 Catherine Albiston Prize for Recent Developments on Gender, Law & Justice)