Salahi PC Launches with a Mission to Champion Social and Economic Justice

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salahilaw.com

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – A former partner at two plaintiff-side class action powerhouses has launched Salahi PC, a litigation boutique that will bring a mission-driven approach to the legal profession. The firm is dedicated to advancing social and economic justice by taking on challenging cases and providing superior representation in the fields of antitrust, consumer protection, employment, and civil rights law. Handling both one-on-one and class action disputes, Salahi PC aims to deliver exceptional legal services that protect clients’ rights and promote fairness and equity within the legal system.

The firm is founded by Yaman Salahi, an experienced litigator with a long-time commitment to fighting for impactful change. A graduate of Yale Law School, he began his career as an Arthur Liman Fellow at the ACLU of Southern California and then a Staff Attorney at the Asian Law Caucus, where he focused on challenging the overbreadth of government surveillance and national security programs and defending the First Amendment rights of students, academics, and activists. In the past eight years, Salahi has been in private practice, where he earned a promotion to partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP, before joining Edelson PC to establish an antitrust practice.

“I am lucky to have worked with top-notch litigators at Lieff Cabraser and Edelson, firms with soaring reputations for excellence and creativity,” said Salahi. “Now it’s time to chart my own path, honoring the roots that inspired me to become a lawyer and nurtured my growth as a litigator.”

At Lieff Cabraser, Salahi worked on cases challenging gender discrimination in the tech and consulting industries, as well as antitrust matters representing workers in academia and the fast-food industries challenging wage suppression. His hallmark accomplishment was pioneering a class action on behalf of incarcerated people who were denied COVID economic stimulus payments. Salahi was the lead brief writer in the case which, in just a few months, successfully secured over $465 million in cash assistance for over a quarter million incarcerated people. At Edelson, Salahi founded a new antitrust practice while filing nearly a dozen cases addressing harmful practices in the cash bail, money transfer, sheepherding, supermarket, healthcare, and pharmaceutical industries, including winning a contested court appointment as interim class counsel in multi-district litigation. In just a few years at the firm, Salahi settled cases that obtained millions of dollars for class members.

“I’ve had the privilege of working at two stellar law firms. I’m going to be building on my track record and drawing upon what I’ve learned to continue pushing the envelope and fighting for excellent results for my clients,” said Salahi. “Over the coming months, the firm will be looking for talented and well-rounded people to grow out its team and practice.”

Salahi added that he hopes his law firm will also be responsive to social and political developments that have highlighted the need for talented lawyers of all backgrounds to rise to the occasion by defending civil rights and liberties, even when it is controversial to do so or may take time away from more lucrative work.

“Legal institutions—from law schools to big law firms—tend to promote conformity and to shun people who take risks or do not fit the mold,” he said. “We’ve seen attorneys and law students fired for anti-war activism, for example, and some law firms have announced that they will not recruit or hire people who participate in those movements. These political litmus tests have no connection to one’s ability to practice law. They have to be called out.”

“As attorneys we have a commitment not just to our clients and to our profession, but to our society at large. We have to be ready to defend the freedoms we cherish, and the institutions that protect them, even if that means confronting powerful interests. If we can’t do that—if we are constantly silencing ourselves because of political pressure—everything we value will eventually be lost,” Salahi explained.

If you are interested in partnering with Salahi PC—as colleagues, cocounsel, or clients—please contact the firm.