WHEN YOU AREN’T BEING HEARD
Sarah Nichols – Founder and Managing Attorney
Ms. Nichols is an attorney with more than 20 years of experience in HR/employment law. She provides effective legal representation and advice to employees. Her advice is measured, concise and tailored based upon the needs of the client. A subject matter expert, aware of trends in business and law, her solutions are innovative but always practical.
Born in the US and raised in Australia, Sarah Nichols, founder of Nichols Law, grew up loving time on the beach and in the outback. She has been a business owner and a partner in a The American Lawyer 100 law firm with offices across the globe.
Sarah represents individuals in relation to their discrimination, retaliation, and wage and hour claims. She assists employees negotiating their exits from their employers. She is a tough and conscientious advocate for her clients and believes having experience on both sides makes her a better attorney.
Sarah is a skilled public speaker, author, coach, and HR expert. She has taught at both Berkeley and Hastings Law Schools and is a member of the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law. Sarah is a frequent speaker for associations as well as private employers. Sarah is passionate about different cultures in the workplace, closing the pay gap and a percentage of the firm’s profits is donated to Equal Rights Advocates every year.
Felicia Medina – Partner
Felicia Medina (she/her) is a nationally acclaimed plaintiff side attorney, having secured some of the largest class and individual settlements in employment discrimination cases on record. With a passion to address systemic oppression by holding powerful corporations and interests accountable, Felicia specializes in employment discrimination, equal pay, sexual harassment, wage and hour, wrongful termination and whistleblower retaliation cases.
She has successfully represented clients from all walks of life, including C-Suite executives, working mothers and parents, scientists and engineers, and sales employees. Her expertise extends to a variety of industries, including STEM, entertainment, legal services, pharmaceuticals, biotech, finance, energy, and transportation.
Felicia has led some of the country’s most significant employment class actions. Most recently, she settled race discrimination class actions, one on a pre-suit basis, against Kaiser for a combined $18.9 million settlement, a pregnancy discrimination class action in the aviation industry, and two pay and promotion gender discrimination class actions against Western Digital and Qualcomm, Inc. on behalf of women tech employees. She also brought and resolved a novel class action claim against AC Transit for failing to accommodate lactating bus drivers and separately had an educational institution publicly apologize for its anti-Blackness.
In her early years as a plaintiff lawyer, Felicia quickly stood out in the top of the field by helping secure the largest employment gender discrimination verdict in U.S. history in Velez v. Novartis. The presiding federal judge described the case as having been “brilliantly tried.” After the seven-week trial and historic $250 million verdict, Felicia and her prior firm obtained a court-approved settlement of $175 million on behalf of 6,000 women with pay, promotion, and caregiver claims.
After the Novartis trial, Felicia quickly rose through the ranks from Associate to Managing Partner at a prior firm, becoming one of the few queer women of color in a leadership position in a national law firm. After becoming a partner, Felicia secured an $8.2 million gender discrimination class action settlement with Daiichi Sankyo, the first case to be conditionally certified under the Equal Pay Act in the Ninth Circuit and settled several significant multi-party and individual pre-suit matters. She has also won appeals in the Sixth Circuit and at the California Supreme Court.
Felicia regularly speaks on impact litigation strategy, race and gender justice, sexual harassment, and equal pay issues. She has been honored as a 2018 San Francisco Business Times OUTstanding Voices recipient; 2017 Daily Journal Leading Labor and Employment Attorneys in California; a 2016 National LGBT Bar Association – Best LGBT Lawyer Under 40; a 2015 National Diversity Council Most Powerful/Influential Woman; and a Law360 2014 Minority Power Broker.
Felicia is currently on the Board of Directors for FAIR and the Chicana Latina Foundation, helping to raise money for student scholarships. She is the former co-chair of the National Center of Lesbian Rights (NLCR).
Prior to entering plaintiff side work, Felicia graduated from Yale Law School in 2006 and then joined Morrison & Foerster LLP.
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2018 San Francisco Business Times OUTstanding Voices Award Recipient
- 2018 Minority Bar Coalition Unity Award Recipient
- 2017 Daily Journal Leading Labor and Employment Attorneys in California
- 2016 National LGBT Bar Association “Best LGBT Lawyer Under 40”
- 2016 SuperLawyers Northern California “Rising Star”
- 2015 National Diversity Council “Most Powerful and Influential Woman”
- 2015 Law360 “Rising Star”
- 2014 Law360 “Minority Power Broker”
Volunteer Work
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Board Member, Public Justice
- Board Member, FAIR
- Board Member, Chicana Latina Foundation
- Former, Co-Chair Board of Directors, National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR)
- Former, Board Member, Legal Aid at Work
Sarah Nichols
Ms. Nichols is an attorney with more than 20 years of experience in HR/employment law. She provides effective legal representation and advice to employers and employees. Her advice is measured, concise and tailored based upon the needs of the client. A subject matter expert, aware of trends in business and law, her solutions are innovative but always practical.
Born in the US and raised in Australia, Sarah Nichols, founder of Nichols Law, grew up loving time on the beach and in the outback. She has been a business owner and a partner in an American Lawyer 100 law firm with offices across the globe.
Sarah partners with in-house counsel, HR, and operations executives to provide advice and counsel on compliance, risk and crisis management, investigations, employment contracts, HR policies and litigation. In over 20 years, Sarah has guided hundreds of organizations from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies as they defend individual and class action claims.
Sarah represents individuals in relation to their discrimination, retaliation, and wage and hour claims. She assists employees negotiating their exits from their employers. She is a tough and conscientious advocate for her clients and believes having experience on both sides makes her a better attorney.
Sarah is a skilled public speaker, author, coach, and HR expert. She has taught at both Berkeley and Hastings Law Schools and is a member of the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law. Sarah is a frequent speaker for associations as well as private employers and provides compliance and liability prevention training for managers. Sarah founded the Foreign Lawyer Legion to provide a networking organization for experienced foreign lawyers working in the U.S. She is passionate about different cultures in the workplace, closing the pay gap and involved in the community through her work with Youth Speaks – an educational non-profit empowering youth through spoken word. A percentage of the firm’s profits is donated to Equal Rights Advocates every year as she believes the work that organization does is essential to closing the wage gap.
