Allison Ehlert

Allison Ehlert is an experienced appellate lawyer who devotes her practice to civil and criminal appeals in the federal courts and California state courts.

She has won precedent-setting victories for her clients on cases as diverse as those involving federal criminal-sentencing law and California wage-and-hour law. Her brief writing has been described as “exemplary” by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and she has been ranked as a “Super Lawyer” in each of 2016, 2017, and 2018.

After law school, Allison clerked for Chief Judge R. Guy Cole on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, as well as Judge Algenon L. Marbley on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. She also spent several years as a trial and appellate litigator at one of San Francisco’s top law firms, Coblentz, Patch, Duffy & Bass.

Allison received her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where she received the American Jurisprudence Award in Criminal Law and the Prosser Prize in Voting Rights. She received her B.A., Summa Cum Laude, in Politics & Government from Ohio Wesleyan University, where she graduated first in her class and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.

Allison is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, numerous federal district courts, and all California state courts.

When she’s not researching cases and polishing briefs, Allison enjoys reading novels and the New Yorker, hiking Bay Area trails, and especially, attempting to keep up with her young daughters.

Allison L. Ehlert

(510) 833-7339

aehlert@ehlerthicks.com

Civil Cases

  • Ontiveros v. Safelite Fulfillment, Inc., 733 F. App’x 916 (9th Cir. 2018): Obtained dismissal on jurisdictional grounds of the defendant’s appeal challenging the trial court’s order invalidating individual settlement agreements the defendant had presented to its employees.
  • Belew v. Brink’s, Inc., 721 F. App’x 734 (9th Cir. 2018): Argued and won partial vacatur of class action settlement agreement on the grounds that the agreement included an overbroad release of wage-and-hour claims.
  • Stewart v. San Luis Ambulance, Inc., 878 F.3d 883 (9th Cir. 2017): Represented ambulance drivers and paramedics in case challenging the denial of unlawful meal and rest breaks. The Ninth Circuit certified questions of California state law to the California Supreme Court.
  • Young v. Bishop Estate, 497 F. App’x 735 (9th Cir. 2012): Obtained reversal of trial court order dismissing the plaintiff’s complaint against the trustee of his mother’s estate.
  • Gutierrez v. Holder, 662 F.3d 1083 (9th Cir. 2011): Appointed as amicus curiae counsel by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Obtained a favorable ruling on the Court’s jurisdiction to review a claim brought under the federal immigration statutes.
  • Pegasus Aviation I, Inc. v. Varig Logistica, S.A., 26 N.Y.3d 543 (NY App. Ct. 2015): Obtained reversal in New York’s highest court of the intermediate appellate court’s decision vacating spoliation sanctions against the defendant.
  • Castaneda v. The Ensign Group, Inc. (2014) 229 Cal.App.4th 1015: Obtained reversal of summary judgment entered against the plaintiff employee in a case alleging California labor-law violations.
  • City of Glendale v. Marcus Cable Associates, LLC (2014) 231 Cal.App.4th 1359: Obtained affirmance of trial verdict for cable company against a city demanding free cable services.
  • Broadway Investments v. Tarlesson (2010) 184 Cal.App.4th 931: Obtained affirmance of trial court order holding that the plaintiff debtor was entitled to a homestead exemption.

Criminal Cases

  • United States v. An Individual (6th Cir. 2017): Represented defendant convicted of being a felon-in-possession of a firearm.
  • United States v. An Individual (6th Cir. 2016): Represented defendant convicted of wire-fraud, money-laundering, and tax-fraud charges.
  • United States v. An Individual (6th Cir. 2014): Obtained reversal of 12-year federal sentence for conspiracy to distribute MDMA (“ecstasy”).
  • People v. An Individual (Cal. 2018): Obtained reversal of defendant’s conviction for offering to sell marijuana.
  • People v. An Individual (Cal. 2016): Obtained modification of gang-related probation conditions.
  • People v. An Individual (Cal. 2016): Obtained reversal of order sentencing defendant to jail, rather than sending him to drug treatment.

Amicus Practice

  • Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman, _ U.S. _; 137 S. Ct. 1144 (2017): Co-authored amicus brief on behalf of behavioral-economics scholars in a case challenging, on First Amendment grounds, a New York statute that regulated what merchants could tell consumers about credit-card surcharges.
  • National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers v. U.S. Department of Justice Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, 844 F.3d 246 (D.C. Cir. 2016): Co-authored amicus brief on behalf of American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation in connection with case seeking disclosure of Department of Justice handbook governing federal prosecutors’ discovery conduct.
  • United States v. A Person (U.S. Supreme Court 2012): Co-authored amicus brief on behalf of law professors in support of criminal defendant’s petition for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court.