Virginia Keeny
Virginia Keeny is a 1988 graduate of Stanford Law School, where she was a member of Order of the Coif. She has been a partner in the firm of Hadsell & Stormer, Inc. since 1998.
In 1988-89, Ms. Keeny served as Law Clerk to the Honorable William A. Norris, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She was a Public Interest Fellow at Litt & Stormer and a Senior Trial Attorney at the EEOC before joining Hadsell & Stormer in 1993. At the EEOC, she was responsible for litigating several class actions against California employers, including one on behalf of female roustabouts against Shell Oil Company.
Ms. Keeny has served as co-counsel or lead counsel on numerous employment discrimination cases, including Mosleh v. City of El Segundo, a racial and sexual harassment case against the City of El Segundo, which resulted in a settlement of $1.3 million; Wysinger v. Automobile Club of Southern California, a disability discrimination and retaliation case which resulted in a judgment of over $1.2 million, and Dagdigian v. City of Los Angeles, an age and national origin discrimination case which settled for $495,000. She worked on Grobeson v. City of Los Angeles, which resulted in a settlement of $800,000 and a novel consent decree, requiring recruitment and hiring of gay and lesbian police officers by the LAPD.
Ms. Keeny has handled numerous class action matters on behalf of employees and consumers. She was co-counsel on Pinney v. Great Western Bank, a federal class action alleging fraud in the sale of mutual funds, which ultimately settled for over $16 million; Cundiff v. Verizon, et al., a class action alleging fraudulent billing practices by the phone company which resulted in a settlement which included cash refunds of over $20 million to customers; Sandoval v. Spherion, a class action on behalf of kitchen and laundry room workers employed in county jails; Alvarez v. Fox Transport, Inc., a class action on behalf of delivery truck drivers, as well as many others. She has also handled numerous cases on behalf of low income and minority individuals who have been exploited by unlawful business practices, including lawsuits against vocational schools for false representations and janitorial franchise businesses for defrauding minimum wage workers.
In 2005, Ms. Keeny filed suit along with two other attorneys on behalf of ten school districts and several families to challenge California’s requirement that all public school students be tested in English even if they have not mastered English, in violation of the California Constitution and the No Child Left Behind Act. Her practice also includes prisoner rights cases and police abuse cases, including Chambers v. County of Los Angeles, which challenged the County’s mistreatment of mentally ill prisoners and guard-sponsored attacks on accused child molesters.
Ms. Keeny has argued several cases before the California courts of appeal and California Supreme Court. She lectures frequently at skills seminars and bar-sponsored events, including the Los Angeles Bar Association’s Labor & Employment Law Symposium. She is currently the Chair of the California Employment Lawyers Association (CELA) and as a trustee for the Center for Law in the Public Interest (CLIPI). In 2006, Ms. Keeny was awarded the Pro Bono Advocacy Award by the ACLU Foundation of Southern California.
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