Lai L. Yip

Ms. Yip is an associate in the Business Trial practice group in the firm's San Francisco office.

Areas of Practice

Ms. Yip has a commercial litigation practice, with experience in consumer class action litigation alleging various business torts and violations of California's Unfair Competition Law and False Advertising Law, Business and Professions Code sections 17200 and 17500, Consumers Legal Remedies Act, and Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act. She also handles real estate breach of contract and unlawful detainer disputes. 

Ms. Yip has experience drafting and filing a wide range of pleading papers, including initial pleadings, dispositive motions, motions to compel arbitration, jurisdictional challenges, motions in limine, motions for attorneys' fees, and ex parte applications. She also has experience propounding and responding to discovery (including extensive interviews of document custodians), enforcing judgments, and conducting complex legal research. She is a member of the firm's e-Discovery Team and manages large-scale electronic discovery projects. 

Ms. Yip also provides pro bono services, including assisting the Los Angeles non-profit Public Counsel with provision of child adoption legal services, working with a San Francisco children's school to obtain funds to stay operational, and drafting an amicus curiae letter to the California Supreme Court urging their review of a decision impacting Alameda County's administration of its General Assistance program. 

Prior to practicing law, Ms. Yip programmed software at George Lucas' special effects company Industrial Light and Magic and is credited in Ang Lee's The Hulk and Barry Sonnenfeld's Men in Black II. At KQED Public Radio, she reported for news magazine Pacific Time and worked on the production of Michael Krasny's talk show Forum. She edited the book Towards Abolition of the Death Penalty in Uganda and advocated for death penalty reform while at Foundation for Human Rights Initiative in Uganda.

Education

• J.D., Boston University, 2008; Staff, American Journal of Law and Medicine
• University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Law, Visiting Student, 2007
• B.A., Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley, Dean's List

Clerkships

• Interned for the Honorable Daniel Chun of the Kings County Supreme Court, New York, NY, 2006

Admissions

• California
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
• U.S. District Court for the Central District of California
• U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California
• U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California

Languages

• Cantonese

Articles

Class Action Defense Strategy Law Blog Articles

• "The Ninth Circuit Holds That The TCPA Prohibits Automated Calls Even When They Do Not Refer To Any Specific Good Or Service," October 31, 2012, reprinted in 19 Association of Business Trial Lawyers Report, San Diego, Winter 2012
• "Court of Appeal Reminds Litigants That Settling With Named Plaintiff Does Not Necessarily End Putative Class Action," January 3, 2012

Speeches

• "Obtaining Electronic Data," National Business Institute Seminar, August 24, 2012