Mary-Christine (M.C.) Sungaila

Practice Areas

M.C. Sungaila is an award-winning appellate attorney who has briefed or argued more than 170 appeals. Many of them involved complex and cutting-edge issues in employment, class action, product liability, franchisor, probate, and constitutional law. She has also developed special expertise in appeals involving Holocaust art recovery. She has handled appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court, multiple state supreme courts, numerous federal and state appellate courts, and even the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

She is known for crafting creative and effective strategies for clients with serious appellate matters and emergent legal challenges. She is often called to consult during litigation and even prior to the initiation of litigation when an appeal by either side could be inevitable. Before joining CALG, M.C. led or co-led appellate practice groups at two different AmLaw 150 law firms, one of the only Hispanic women ever to do so.

M.C. has twice won the “California Lawyer of the Year” award, along with other honors. She has contributed to appellate treatises and trial handbooks published by the ABA and CEB. Her articles relating to effective amicus briefing, appellate brief writing, and gender issues are cited frequently and are required reading in law schools throughout North America. She has taught appellate law at the University of California at Irvine, Loyola, and Whitter Law Schools.

M.C. is also the creator and host of an award-winning podcast, The Portia Project®️. The twice-weekly podcast celebrates the achievements of pathbreaking and leading women judges and lawyers and seeks to inspire the next generation of women lawyers and law students.

She clerked for Judge Ferdinand F. Fernandez of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit after law school. She also clerked for Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, and served as an extern on the Ninth Circuit to Judge Dorothy W. Nelson.

M.C. obtained her J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law, and her B.A. from Stanford University.