Michelle Doolin

I'll research this attorney before drafting.

Summary — Michelle Doolin (Sidley Austin LLP, San Diego)

Specialty / focus. On the public record, Ms. Doolin is not a patent litigator. Her practice is consumer and commercial litigation defense: consumer class actions, false and deceptive advertising, product defect and warranty claims, privacy/data-collection claims, pricing and hidden-fee litigation, and wage-and-hour disputes. Firm and directory profiles (Sidley, Chambers USA, Best Lawyers) describe her as a nationally recognized class action and commercial litigator and global co-leader of Sidley's Consumer Class Actions practice, with no stated patent, IPR, or technology-licensing focus. The one tracked matter involving patents — Harbor Freight Tools USA, Inc. v. Champion Power Equipment, Inc. — concerns mechanical/electrical technology (dual- and tri-fuel portable generators) and a family of 13 asserted patents, but her involvement appears to be incidental rather than a patent practice: public filings in the lead declaratory judgment action, No. 2:24-cv-08722 (C.D. Cal.), list Quinn Emanuel as Harbor Freight's counsel of record and Husch Blackwell for Champion. I could not verify a patent-specific role for Ms. Doolin in that dispute from any public source.

Side preference. The tracked data (1 plaintiff-side appearance, 0 defendant-side) reflects that single matter. Taken with her broader practice, the more accurate picture is that she is a defense-side litigator for operating companies — retail, consumer products, and technology brand owners — rather than a plaintiff-side patent prosecutor or an NPE/PAE enforcement lawyer. Her client base has included Nike, Gap, Sony, Google, Nintendo, Tiffany & Co., and related consumer-facing brands. There is no public indication of patent assertion work.

Firm context. Ms. Doolin joined Sidley Austin as a partner in its San Diego office in February 2026, joining from Cooley LLP, where she chaired the class action practice. Her move was reported by Sidley's own press release, Law.com (American Lawyer), and Global Legal Chronicle; she had been with Cooley in San Diego (previously with the firm's La Jolla/San Diego offices).

Notable matters, PTAB, and bar/education. Her most prominent publicly documented result is a Los Angeles jury trial win for the Kardashian-Jenner family defeating defamation claims seeking more than $100 million, plus a long record of class action dismissals, class-certification denials, and appellate wins under California's Song-Beverly Credit Card Act (including a published appellate decision on return transactions and a one-year limitations period). The Harbor Freight/Champion dispute has generated numerous IPRs (e.g., IPR2025-00805, -00951, -01272), but I found no PTAB filing listing Ms. Doolin as counsel, so there is no basis to characterize her as a regular IPR/PGR practitioner. Admission: California (1995), also admitted in Massachusetts and New York; J.D., University of San Diego School of Law, 1995.

Caveat: the tracked appearance does not support describing Ms. Doolin as a patent litigation specialist, and I could not confirm her specific role in the Harbor Freight matter.