High Powered Attorney and Mentor

As a litigation partner and firm leader in Latham & Watkins’ San Francisco office, Sarah Ray guides global corporations with complex, headline-grabbing cases to results that help shape the legal, corporate, and consumer landscape.

She has a demanding professional life at the world’s highest grossing law firm, with $2.6 billion in revenue. She represents global corporations with complex issues that affect their multinational operations. Oracle, Toshiba, Emerson, Eaton and Apple are among the corporations that turn to Ray and her colleagues to manage their most complicated antitrust matters.

Ray’s job includes defending civil antitrust cases and competition-related commercial cases, counseling and guiding through confidential government investigations, and managing high-stakes international arbitration matters. She has significant experience representing technology, internet and media companies. With all the demands of her professional life, she says she manages to maintain a healthy personal life by making time for her family.

“Although my work is very demanding, it provides a lot of flexibility to attend school events, take great vacations and find impromptu one-on-one time with my kids,” she said.  “It’s hard to get the balance right in any given week or month, but especially after an intense stretch, I’ve learned to take advantage of the slower periods and not just rush to the next thing.”

Ray is also global co-chair of Woman Enriching Business (WEB) and oversees the 15-member steering committee, comprising partners from around the firm. The group spearheads Latham’s strategy with regard to supporting and promoting women in business via the development of broader networks and productive professional relationships.

She said being a woman in the legal profession has been incredibly rewarding. “I feel like we’re at an inflection point where younger women lawyers are finding ways to be successful on their own terms and in larger numbers. I believe we are at long last reaching a critical mass that is shifting the way law is practiced and propping open the door for more people of different experiences and backgrounds to push through,” she said.

Ray holds a B.A. from Duke University and law degree from the Berkeley School of Law at the University of California.