Overview
Halley Josephs is a leading trial lawyer who represents plaintiffs and defendants in complex business disputes and other high-stakes cases across the United States. She counsels clients through every stage of litigation and arbitration—from the evaluation of potential claims and development of case strategy through trial—and has tried multiple cases to verdict in the past several years. Her experience spans a wide range of practice areas, including antitrust, contract disputes, consumer protection, employment, intellectual property, False Claims Act, and class action litigation.
In recognition of her accomplishments, Halley has been named one of the Top Women Lawyers in California and a California Lawyer Attorney of the Year by The Daily Journal, a Next Generation Leading Lawyer by Lawdragon, and a Rising Star of the Plaintiffs’ Bar by National Law Journal’s Elite Trial Lawyers.
LITIGATION HIGHLIGHTS
Halley currently represents Penske Media Corporation – owner of iconic media brands including Variety, Rolling Stone, Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter – and educational publisher Chegg in antitrust lawsuits asserting that Google has unlawfully maintained and exploited its monopoly in search to appropriate publisher content for its AI products.
Halley also serves as Interim Co-Lead Class Counsel in the In re MultiPlan Health Insurance Provider Litigation MDL (N.D. Ill.), a significant antitrust class action on behalf of healthcare providers alleging that major health insurers colluded with pricing intermediary MultiPlan to unlawfully suppress payments for out-of-network healthcare services. Halley and her team defeated defendants’ motion to dismiss in 2025, and the case is now in discovery. Read more.
In recent years, Halley has helped secure over $400 million in recoveries for her clients, including millions in settlements for universal life insurance policyholders in breach-of-contract class actions against some of the nation’s leading insurers, such as AXA and North American. Halley is currently litigating putative class actions against other insurers as well, including John Hancock, Midland, Wilton Re, Talcott, and Sun Life.
Earlier in her career, Halley defended Uber Technologies in the “Tech Trial of the Century,” in which Waymo claimed more than $2 billion in damages for alleged trade secret theft. The Susman Godfrey team was brought on by Uber only months before the jury trial, achieving a key victory by successfully arguing for the exclusion of Waymo’s expert damages opinions. The case settled during the first week of trial. Benchmark Litigation awarded Halley and the Susman Godfrey team National Impact Case of the Year for their work on this matter. Read more.
PRO BONO & COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
Halley is active in the Los Angeles legal community; she currently serves on the board of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers.
Halley also maintains an active pro bono practice. She has argued and won multiple appeals for pro bono clients before the Ninth Circuit involving Takings Clause challenges to COVID-19 eviction ordinances in Los Angeles and San Diego. The Daily Journal profiled Halley and her colleagues for their work in this area and named her a California Lawyer Attorney of the Year in 2023. Halley also received a Pro Bono Award from Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County in recognition of this work. Read more in the San Francisco Chronicle and Law360.
BACKGROUND
Halley joined Susman Godfrey after clerking for Judge Patty Shwartz of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and Judge Anita B. Brody of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. She earned her J.D. from Yale Law School and her B.A. with distinction and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Virginia.
Notable Representations
- Penske Media Corp. et al. v. Google LLC and Chegg, Inc. v. Google LLC (D.D.C.): Representing leading media and educational publishing companies in cases asserting that Google has unlawfully maintained and exploited its monopoly in general search services to appropriate educational publisher content supplied for search indexing to operate AI generated search result overviews and other non-search features.
- In re MultiPlan Health Insurance Provider Litigation MDL (N.D. Ill.): Appointed Interim Co-Lead Class Counsel in antitrust class action on behalf of healthcare providers alleging that major health insurers colluded with pricing intermediary MultiPlan to unlawfully suppress payments for out-of-network healthcare services.
- INTO USF LP, et al. v. USF Financing Corp., et al. (Florida State Court): Representing an international education organization in a breach-of-contract case against the University of South Florida for improperly terminating the parties’ long-term agreements to recruit and educate international students at the university. In 2025, Halley argued and defeated the university’s primary Daubert motion seeking to exclude her client’s damages expert from testifying at trial.
- Confidential Restaurant Industry Arbitration: Represented an LA-based restaurant industry client in a dispute with a major delivery platform over contractual pricing and exclusivity rights. The dispute was resolved in her client’s favor after a week-long arbitration, where Halley examined five witnesses and presented closing arguments.
- Capitol Hill Group v. DCA Capitol Hill LTAC, LLC, et al. (D.C. Superior Court): Represented Capitol Hill Group, a family-owned commercial real estate company, in a contract dispute. Following a week-long bench trial, Halley and her team secured a complete victory on CHG’s contract claims plus an award of attorneys’ fees and expenses, defeating an $18 million counterclaim and recovering $5.8 million for CHG.
- Confidential Sports Arbitration: Achieved a landmark win for a major sports agency in a confidential arbitration concerning the departure of agents to a competing agency.
- Vertical Aviation v. Government of Trinidad and Tobago (S.D.N.Y.): Represented an international aviation financing and leasing company in breach-of-contract actions to recover more than $40 million in damages from various lessees. Halley led mediations which resulted in confidential settlements on favorable terms.
- Waymo LLC v. Uber Technologies, Inc. (N.D. Cal.): Defended Uber Technologies in the “Tech Trial of the Century,” in which Waymo claimed more than $2 billion in damages for alleged trade secret theft. The Susman Godfrey team was brought on by Uber only months before the jury trial, achieving a key victory by successfully arguing for the exclusion of Waymo’s expert damages opinions. The case settled during the first week of trial.
- Jane Doe v. MindGeek USA Inc. et al. (C.D. Cal.): Secured class certification on behalf of survivors of child pornography against Pornhub parent company, MindGeek, alleging MindGeek has violated federal sex trafficking and child pornography laws by knowingly posting, enabling the posting of and profiting from thousands of pornographic videos and images featuring persons under the age of 18.
- In re AXA COI Litigation (S.D.N.Y.): Secured a $307.5 million settlement for a certified class of plaintiffs who challenged AXA’s increases to cost-of-insurance charges for certain flexible-premium life insurance policies covering elderly insureds.
- PHT Holding II LLC v. North American Company for Life and Health Insurance (S.D. Iowa): Secured a $59 million settlement for a certified class of plaintiffs who challenged North American’s failure to decrease cost-of-insurance charges for certain flexible-premium life insurance policies.
- False Claims Act – Medicare & Medicaid Overcharges By Walgreens and USA Drug (N.D. Okla.): Secured a $16 million settlement on behalf of a qui tam whistleblower in a False Claims Act case alleging that Walgreens, Stephen L. LaFrance Holdings, Inc., and several companies that were part of USA Drug, a regional pharmacy chain, knowingly overbilled Medicare Part D, Medicaid and other government health programs millions of dollars by unlawfully charging more for generic drugs than the customary prices paid by individuals without prescription drug insurance.
Honors & Distinctions
Honors and Awards
- Los Angeles Elite - Commercial Disputes, Legal 500 (2026)
- Lawdragon 500 X – The Next Generation (Lawdragon, 2023, 2024, 2025)
- Top Woman Lawyer, Daily Journal (Daily Journal Corp, 2023)
- California Lawyer Attorney of the Year, Daily Journal (Daily Journal Corp, 2023)
- Rising Star, Super Lawyers Southern California (Thomson Reuters, 2023, 2024, 2025)
- Rising Star of the Plaintiffs Bar, National Law Journal’s Elite Trial Lawyers (ALM, 2022)
- Recipient of National Impact Case of the Year Award by Benchmark Litigation (2019)
- Yale Law School Coker Fellow, Torts, Professor Douglas Kysar
- Teaching Assistant to the Honorable Stefan R. Underhill (D. Conn.), Complex Civil Litigation, Yale Law School
- Articles Editor, Yale Journal on Regulation
- Raven Society, University of Virginia
Clerkships
- Honorable Patty Shwartz, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
- Honorable Anita B. Brody, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Education
Education
- Yale Law School (J.D., 2014)
- The University of Virginia (B.A., with distinction, 2011)
- Phi Beta Kappa
Admissions
Admissions
Bar Admissions
- California
- New York
Court Admissions
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
- U.S. District Court for the Central District of California
- U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
- U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York
- U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
