Michelle Abdolhosseini is a senior associate in the San Francisco office of Ogletree Deakins. Michelle has extensive experience defending employers in labor and employment litigation, including defending employers in single-plaintiff actions and wage-and-hour class, collective, and representative PAGA actions. Her matters regularly involve claims of alleged wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment, whistleblower retaliation, failure to accommodate, and meal-and-rest-break violations.
Michelle is a trial-tested litigator who has second-chaired two jury trials and won dispositive motions, including a summary judgment that eliminated substantial PAGA exposure for her client. Michelle has successfully lead mediation strategy and negotiations in individual disputes and in large-scale terminations, as well as counseling employers on handbooks, discipline and terminations, accommodations, severance offers, and compliance with evolving California and federal law. Michelle is experienced in handling matters in federal and state trial courts, appellate courts, and arbitration, and has particular familiarity with representing clients in the software and technology-sector.
Before litigation, Michelle served as a judicial extern for the Presiding Judge and Appellate Division of the Superior Court of San Francisco and for the Chief Judge of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Administrative Law Judges.
Michelle has been named to the Northern California Rising Star list by Super Lawyers (2022–2026) and recognized as Ones to Watch in Litigation: Labor & Employment by The Best Lawyers in America (2022–2026).
