Sharon Tomkins
Partner
Sharon Tomkins is a partner in O'Melveny's Los Angeles Office and a member of the Firm's Energy, Natural Resources & Environmental Practice. She has extensive experience in addressing regulatory, environmental, litigation and appellate issues unique to the energy industry. Sharon is also a partner in the Business Trial and Litigation Practice, having an extensive background in securities litigation as well. Sharon has been named three years in a row as a Southern California “Rising Star” in surveys conducted by Law & Politics Media Inc. and published in
Los Angeles magazine (in 2005 for Securities Litigation; in 2006-2007 for Utilities).
Illustrative Professional Experience
- Representing and advising investor owned utilities in a variety of litigation, regulatory and appellate matters
- Representing defense contractor in federal and state court against class and mass toxic tort actions involving air and groundwater contamination
- Representing oil company in litigation involving claims for natural resource damages
- Defending federal and state court shareholder and derivative litigation, including the successful removal of 1933 Act claim to federal court under SLUSA
- Defending state court actions, alleging violations of California Corporations Code, negligence, and negligent misrepresentation in the sale of private placement offering memoranda
Pro Bono
- The California Aspire Achieve Lead Pipeline Project (assist in the incorporation of a new non-profit that will provide educational opportunities for students in pre-school through graduate school with the hope of promoting diversity in the legal profession)
- Lamp Community (representation of this nationally recognized nonprofit that provides immediate housing and lifelong supportive services to homeless persons with a severe mental illness in connection with a dispute with a collection agency)
- Immigration cases (representation of individuals involved in immigration proceedings, including most recently an unaccompanied minor who fled El Salvador to escape death threats)
The Community at Large
- The Conference of California Public Utility Counsel (serves on Board of Directors)
- Women's Lawyers Association of Los Angeles (serves on Appointed Office Committee of the Board of Governors)
- Uncommon Good (serves on Board of Directors for this nonprofit organization that works to ensure that the poor have access to quality education, health care, and legal services)
- Run for Justice (organized a team of O'Melveny attorneys to participate in this important annual fundraising drive for Public Counsel, the largest pro bono public interest law firm in the world)
Professional Activities
Law Clerk, Honorable Danny J. Boggs, U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Speaker, "Career Success for Women," University of Southern California's Career Planning & Placement Center (2005); "Making Partner in Today's Legal Environment," Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles (2005)
Co-Author, "Recent Developments in Shareholder Derivative Actions," Practising Law Institute (2001); "Litigation Under the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act," Practising Law Institute (2002); "Shareholder Derivative Actions: From Cradle to Grave," Practising Law Institute (2006 and 2007) (with Seth Aronson, Ted Hassi, Tristan Sorah-Reyes)
Awards, Los Angeles Business Journal - Who's Who of Environmental Lawyers (2008)
Member, State Bar of California