Mary-Christine Sungaila was sitting in a room at Stanford Law School in the autumn of 1996, recruiting students for summer jobs, when the two lecturers in charge of the moot court competition approached her. "We're looking for a moot court problem," one said. "Do you happen to know about any interesting women's rights cases coming up?"
As a matter of fact, she did. She told them about two she'd been following: Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, which involved student-on-student sexual harassment, and Brzonkala v. Morrison, which challenged a provision in the federal Violence Against Women Act. That spring, two dozen students launched into hypothetical debates of those cases in mock courtrooms -- and, a few years later, Sungaila presented her arguments to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Sungaila is an associate at California's premier appellate firm, Horvitz & Levy. Her practice consists mostly of business lawsuits, but she takes on about one women's rights case a year, working for free, often in collaboration with the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund. "Not only is it rare for an attorney in private practice to be so committed to doing pro bono work," says Julie Goldscheid, acting legal director of the NOW fund, "it's impressive how well she stays on top of the law."
Sungaila has filed three amicus ("friend of the court") briefs with the Supreme Court, representing organizations that are not parties to the case but want to present their views to the justices. "Filing an amicus brief can make a difference in close cases," she says. Although it didn't quite tip the scales in Brzonkala -- the justices rejected Sungaila's position in a 5-4 vote last May -- Sungaila thinks it did in Davis, which came down 5-4 in her favor.
Sungaila hasn't yet identified her next women's rights case, but she's hardly at a loss for things to do. She writes a column on gender and justice for the Los Angeles Daily Journal, a legal newspaper, and has served as one of its TV critics, evaluating The Practice last season. Horvitz & Levy may enlist her help to expand its amicus practice in the Supreme Court.
And then there's her peripatetic lifestyle. Sungaila lives in a Los Angeles apartment and commutes to Encino during the week, then heads south to her house in Newport Coast on weekends. There she catches up with her former dog, a bichon frise named Machisma, adopted by her parents three years ago. "It's in the best interests of the dog," she laughs. "I work too much."
--KATHY ZONANA, '93, JD '96
