Xinying Valerian
Founder & Managing Partner
Xinying represents employees in class action and individual cases and is experienced in negotiations, mediations, and trial.
Xinying represents workers throughout California in wage and hour, discrimination, and whistleblower cases. Her track record is marked by exceptional outcomes achieved through sophisticated pre-litigation advocacy and negotiation, as well as hard-fought and cutting-edge litigation successes. In her career in private practice, Xinying has prosecuted numerous class action cases and has helped to achieve class and representative action settlements totaling over $44 million, as well as programmatic relief affecting many thousands of workers in key industries. For individual plaintiffs, Xinying has led numerous cases involving 6- and 7-figure private settlements.
Xinying’s broad experience includes negotiating severance agreements for executives and white-collar workers, litigating employment and consumer class actions, representing the media in First Amendment cases, and safeguarding the rights of low-income immigrant families.
Experience
Xinying has represented numerous technology, STEM, and knowledge workers and executives who have stood up for gender equality and workers’ rights in major technology companies. Publicly, the case results Xinying helped secure include a $19.5 million class-action settlement against Qualcomm, Inc., involving pay and promotion discrimination claims, and a $5.5 settlement on behalf of a class of contract workers at Google. Xinying and Valerian Law and her firm are co-lead counsel in a long-running representative action seeking to protect the rights of thousands of sales employees at Oracle, where Valerian Law helped secure numerous liability rulings against Oracle and in favor of the employees. In many of her high-profile cases, as well as private settlements, Xinying has been the counsel trusted by women, and especially women of color, to prosecute their claims vigorously while providing empathetic support and guidance.
Before founding Valerian Law, Xinying worked for Sanford Heisler Sharp, LLP, a national plaintiffs’ firm, managing its San Francisco Office in her last role there. Earlier in private practice, she also worked for another San Francisco class action firm representing consumers, homeowners in class litigation, and journalists in First Amendment litigation.
Before private practice, Xinying represented low-income families as a staff attorney at Bay Area Legal Aid and served as a judicial law clerk in federal court for two years.
Xinying speaks Mandarin Chinese. In Chinese, she is known as “Attorney Xinying” (欣颖律师).
- California Employment Lawyers Association
- Equal Rights Advocates, Litigation Committee
- Alameda County Bar Association
- Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area
- National Asian Pacific American Bar Association
- California
- U.S. District Court, Central District of California
- U.S. District Court, Northern District of California
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Awards
CELA Torch Award
California Employment Lawyers Association
2017
Northern California Super Lawyers Rising Stars
2016-2017
Notable Cases
- Branner v. Covenant Aviation Security, LLC, Case No. 20-CIV-03164, San Mateo Superior Court. Pregnancy accommodations class action settlement approved in March 2021.
- Brooke v. Aurora Behavioral Healthcare, Case No. SCV 261926, Sonoma Superior Court. PAGA representative action centered on hospital health and safety with over $2.85M in civil penalties recovered, plus programmatic relief, secured in 2021. Individual whistleblower received confidential settlement.
- Casteel v. Alaska Airlines, Inc., Case No. RG20052826, Cal. Super. Ct., Alameda, 2020. Statewide PAGA representative action involving novel Labor Code section 232.5 violations; settled pre-litigation and granted approval by the Superior Court.
- Fletscher v. Overland Solutions, Inc., Case No. RG17852058, Cal. Super. Ct., Alameda – wage and hour class and PAGA representative action; final approval of class settlement granted April 15, 2019.
- Pan v. Qualcomm, Inc., Case No. 3:2016-cv-01885, S.D. Cal. 2016. Gender discrimination putative class and collective action initiated in pre-suit mediation in 2015 and approved as class settlement in 2017.
- Ha, et al. v. Google Inc., et al., Case No. 1:16-cv-290847, Cal. Super. Ct., Santa Clara. Unpaid overtime wages on behalf of Google contract recruiters; final approval of class settlement granted.
- Schaffer v. Massage Green Int’l Franchise Corp., Case No. BC571914, Cal. Super. Ct., Los Angeles. Minimum wage class and PAGA representative action; final approval of class settlement granted in 2017.
- Tian, et al. v. Ma Laboratories, Inc., Case No. 1-11-cv-195373, Cal. Super. Ct., Santa Clara. Unpaid overtime wages for a class of hourly workers; certified as a class action in 2014 and final approval granted in 2015. The class action settled several days before the start of trial.