Lisa P. Mak is a Senior Associate in Minami Tamaki’s Consumer and Employee Rights Group. She is passionate about protecting the rights of consumers and employees as individuals and in class actions.

Ms. Mak’s practice includes employment discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, contract claims, and labor code violations. She is experienced in litigation, from pre-litigation negotiations to trials and appeals. Ms. Mak also advises employees on employment contracts and severance agreements.

Ms. Mak has served as trial counsel in multiple trials involving a wide variety of employment disputes in state and federal court. In 2016, she was co-lead counsel on a five-week jury trial which resulted in a $3.5 million total verdict for four female officers at the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department. The verdict was listed in the LexisNexis “Top 10 Employment Verdicts” for 2016, and was recognized by Leaders in the Law in its “Northern California’s Leading Lawyers” 2017 publication.

Prior to joining Minami Tamaki, Ms. Mak worked at prominent plaintiffs’ employment law and civil rights firms, where she served on trial teams for high-profile discrimination and retaliation cases.

Ms. Mak was selected as a Super Lawyers Rising Star from 2015-2022, an honor awarded to no more than 2.5 percent of attorneys in the state. She was named to the 2022 and 2023 Best Lawyers: Ones To Watch list. She was also honored with the 2023 NAPABA Best Under 40 award, the 2017 Legal Advocate Award from the Center for Workers’ Rights, and with a civil rights award from the Equal Justice Society. 

Ms. Mak graduated from UC San Diego summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and received her law degree from UC College of the Law, San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings Law). During law school, she externed for an Administrative Law Judge in the U.S. Department of Labor and worked as a Research Assistant at the Center for WorkLife Law. Ms. Mak also served as a Clinic Counselor at Legal Aid at Work, an experience which solidified her interest in representing employees from all backgrounds.

Ms. Mak is deeply committed to community service and diversity issues. She served as the 2022 President of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area, one of the largest Asian American bar associations in the nation. She currently serves as a Board Member of the California Asian Pacific American Bar Association, and as the Alternate Regional Governor for Northern California for the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association. She is actively involved in the California Employment Lawyers Association (“CELA”) and co-chairs CELA’s Education Committee. Ms. Mak is also a past Board Member of the Bar Association of San Francisco and Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, and a former Co-Chair of the Minority Bar Coalition. She writes and speaks frequently about employment law and social justice issues. She is fluent in Cantonese.

EDUCATION

J.D., University of California College of the Law, San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings Law)
B.A. summa cum laude Political Science, University of California, San Diego

ADMISSIONS
California, 2008