Theane Evangelis 

Theane Evangelis is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Gibson Dunn. She is Co-Chair of Gibson Dunn’s global Litigation Practice Group and one of the country’s leading litigators. Theane represents clients in federal and state courts throughout the nation in a wide spectrum of cases and has argued and won high-profile, groundbreaking appeals across the country, including in the Supreme Court of the United States.

Theane is also a member of the Appellate, Class Actions, Labor and Employment, Media, Entertainment, and Technology, and Crisis Management Practice Groups. She joined Gibson Dunn after serving as a law clerk to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor during October Term 2004 and as an associate with Ziffren Brittenham, a Los Angeles law firm specializing in entertainment and media transactions. Before clerking for Justice O’Connor, Theane was a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Theane’s exceptional work has earned her widespread recognition from leading legal publications. In 2025, she was honored as “Attorney of the Year” at the California Legal Awards, presented by Law.com and The Recorder, a prestigious accolade celebrating a California lawyer whose impact on the profession and the law goes beyond service to the client. Law360 has named Theane an “Employment MVP” and has recognized her as a “Class Action MVP” on three separate occasions. She was recognized by the National Law Journal as a 2023 “Employment Law Trailblazer.” She is ranked by Chambers USA for Appellate Litigation, both in California and Nationwide. Benchmark Litigation has recognized Theane with several prestigious honors: she was named “Labor & Employment Litigator of the Year,” in 2025, at Benchmark’s 16th annual US awards ceremony; Benchmark lists her among the country’s Top 250 Women in Litigation; and she has been included on their Top 50 Labor & Employment Litigators list for her leadership in significant bet-the-company matters. Theane has also been recognized by Lawdragon as one of 500 Leading Litigators in America, 500 Leading Corporate Employment Lawyers, 500 Global Leaders in Crisis Management, and 500 Leading Global Litigators. According to the Los Angeles Business Journal, which named Theane to its 2025 Top 100 Lawyers list, 2025 Women of Influence: Attorneys list, 2022 Leaders of Influence list for Labor & Employment, and named her a 2021 Labor and Employment “Lawyer of the Year,” she “has emerged as a go-to class action lawyer for businesses whose business models are under attack.”

Theane was honored by the Los Angeles Daily Journal with a 2025 California Lawyer Award of the Year (CLAY) in the Class Action category. The Daily Journal has also included her on its annual lists of Leading Commercial Litigators since 2023, Top 100 Lawyers in California since 2021, and credits her with “keeping the wheels of the gig economy turning.” Furthermore, the publication has named Theane a “Top Woman Lawyer in California” since 2016, and, in its annual Top Verdicts of California 2018 feature, the Daily Journal recognized Theane for three of her litigation successes where she was able to obtain record verdicts for clients Uber, Kimberly-Clark, and Grubhub. Theane was recognized by Best Lawyers as the 2023 Appellate “Lawyer of the Year,” and has been selected by her peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® guide since 2014 for her appellate work and since 2025 for her employment work. Theane was named by Euromoney Legal Media Group as the 2021 “Litigation Lawyer of Year” at the Americas Women in Business Law Awards. The Greek America Foundation included Theane on Greek America’s Forty under 40 list and Super Lawyers has recognized her in the appellate category for over a decade. Theane received the 2022 distinguished Amicus Service Award from the International Municipal Lawyers Association (IMLA) for her service to the IMLA Legal Advocacy program. In a published article by The Am Law Litigation Daily, Theane shared her experience “handling three oral arguments in four cases for gig economy clients on back-to-back days in two separate circuit courts” in 2022.

In July 2024, Theane was selected by The American Lawyer as the “Litigator of the Week,” in recognition of her victory before the Supreme Court of the United States in a landmark case with national implications on behalf of the City of Grant Pass, Oregon, which held that the Eighth Amendment does not prevent the enforcement of camping regulations on public property. Theane was previously recognized as a “Litigator of the Week” for her 2018 victory on behalf of Grubhub in the first federal case regarding the classification of workers in the “gig” economy.

Theane graduated summa cum laude from New York University School of Law in 2003 and received the University Graduation Prize, which is awarded to the student with the highest grade point average in the graduating class. During law school, she was a Butler and Pomeroy Scholar and served as Managing Editor of the New York University Law Review.

Prior to law school, Theane served as a legislative assistant to former U.S. Representative Max Sandlin, for whom she handled financial services, technology, and foreign affairs legislation. She received a B.S. in Foreign Service, cum laude, from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service

Theane is a member of the California bar and is admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Courts of Appeal across the country, and all federal courts in California. Theane serves on the board of the California Women’s Law Center and The Hellenic Initiative. Theane is a Trustee of the Global Greek Film Initiative and is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the NYU Law School. Theane was also appointed by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to the Los Angeles County Blue Ribbon Commission on Homelessness.