Before opening her own firm in 2019, Ms. Nugent was a partner at Dickson Geesman LLP in Oakland, California, where she successfully tried employment cases in state and federal courts and in arbitration. Ms. Nugent represents employees exclusively, as she has throughout her career.

 

Before becoming a lawyer, Ms. Nugent worked for a wide variety of non-profit organizations: providing legal services to clients with HIV/AIDS at the Whitman Walker Clinic in Washington, DC; representing low-income clients at Legal Services of Northern Virginia; working on military law and GI Rights issues at the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors; and managing the US office of Peace Brigades International. She also served as Senior Research Associate for the Public International Law & Policy Group where she managed the Montenegro and Cyprus projects. From 2005-2007, she provided legal assistance to Montenegro on referenda and state succession issues and to Turkish Cypriots on electoral rights and earned sovereignty.

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The San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association named Ms. Nugent its Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2021. She was a finalist for the same award in 2020. In 2012, the AIDS Legal Referral Panel in San Francisco honored her as its Attorney of the Year. She has been rated a Northern California SuperLawyer in Employment Litigation from 2019-2023 and was named a SuperLawyers “Rising Star” from 2012-2018. 

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Ms. Nugent served as Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of the AIDS Legal Referral Panel from 2015-2018. She is past Chair of the Labor & Employment Section of the Alameda County Bar Association. She is a member of and frequent speaker on panels and conferences put on by the American Bar Association’s Labor & Employment sections, California Employment Lawyers Association, AIDS Legal Referral Panel, San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association, and Alameda County Bar Association. 

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Ms. Nugent graduated from American University Washington College of Law, UC Berkeley, and Annapolis Senior High School.