Teresa Demchak
Adjunct Professor Teresa Demchak is the managing partner of Goldstein, Demchak, Baller, Borgen & Dardarian, an Oakland-based law firm that represents plaintiffs in complex and class action litigation, including civil rights, employment discrimination, wage and hour, disability access, environmental, consumer, and other public interest class actions or complex cases.
Professor Demchak was born and raised in Canton, Ohio. She received a B.A. in Social Welfare from Cleveland State University in June 1970 and a Masters’ in Social Science Administration from Case Western Reserve University in June 1972. In 1976, she graduated from Cleveland Marshall School of Law. While attending law school, Professor Demchak was a legal assistant for the NAACP working on school desegregation cases in Ohio and Michigan. Following her graduation from law school, Professor Demchak remained with the NAACP, first in Cleveland and then as an Assistant General Counsel in the Association’s headquarters in New York. While an attorney with the NAACP, Professor Demchak continued to litigate school desegregation cases throughout the United States. In 1982, Professor Demchak moved to San Francisco to assume the position as a staff attorney with the National Center for Youth Law, a national children’s rights organization, where she litigated class actions on behalf of the rights of children in governmental custody. In January 1990, Professor Demchak joined her current firm, where she became a partner in January 1995, and managing partner in January 2007.
While at Goldstein, Demchak, Professor Demchak has litigated numerous race and gender class action employment discrimination cases, the public accommodations class action against Denny’s restaurant, and several environmental cases. In addition to her litigation work, Professor Demchak has consulted with several companies regarding their employment and/or customer service practices and procedures and she made numerous presentations to law students and lawyers on various topics related to employment discrimination class actions. Additional information about Professor Demchak and her firm may be found at http://www.gdblegal.com.
Professor Demchak will be teaching Litigating Class Action Employment for the first time during the Spring 2008 semester. The class has been taught for a number of years by Brad Seligman, formerly a managing partner at Goldstein, Demchak, and currently the Director of The Impact Fund.