Profile: Vanessa Deniston

Employment attorney is named a Marin County Trial Lawyer of the Year for PI case

2026 January

While Vanessa Deniston long admired her father’s work as a corporate defense attorney, she didn’t consider pursuing a career in law until some pivotal undergraduate classes showed her that there are many ways to be a lawyer.

Coursework on critical race theory, international human rights, and the death penalty in America demonstrated to her that lawyers can influence law and policy at the local, state, and national levels. Plaintiffs’ law, especially where it overlaps with civil rights work, was particularly intriguing.

“In those courses, I was reading cases brought by a single attorney representing a single individual challenging some very big injustice. It really made me reconsider what a lawyer is and what a lawyer can be, and how powerful lawyers are in our system,” Deniston said in a recent interview.

After majoring in history and literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Deniston surprised herself by not continuing on a path toward academia. Instead, she pursued a law degree at Suffolk University Law School in Boston and passed the bar exams in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

The East Coast proved to have a tough job market for young lawyers in those days, so Deniston set her sights on her home state of California. She passed the California Bar in 2012 and moved back to the Los Angeles area, where she dug into the kinds of law she had read about in undergrad, including representing clients in employment-related claims for Shegerian & Associates.

“It really fueled my passion to do that work,” Deniston recalled.

While the practice area felt right, the location wasn’t a perfect fit. Deniston was drawn to Northern California for its ample outdoor adventure opportunities and welcoming LGBTQ+ community.

“The Bay Area definitely reflects more of who I am than I think Los Angeles does. I do love L.A. – it holds a special place in my heart, and I’m still a diehard Dodgers fan,” she said. “But the Bay Area feels so much more right for who I am and how I want to practice than L.A. does.”

Today, Deniston is just where she wants to be: a managing trial attorney at the Dolan Law Firm, PC, in the Oakland office, handling all aspects of employment and personal-injury litigation from inception to trial. She also makes time for professional organizations, travel, and recreation.

“I definitely have more energy than anyone I know,” she said. “I do kind of have an uncommon ability to fit a lot of things in, but I do what I love to do.”

Advocating for employees

Now with Dolan Law for nine years, Deniston is managing trial attorney of the firm’s employment team. She and her colleagues represent clients who’ve been discriminated against or harassed in the workplace, fired without cause, who’ve blown the whistle on unlawful activity, or who’ve been injured on the job.

Filing suit against an employer can be a lonely experience, so Deniston understands how important it is for clients to have someone in their corner.

A recent memorable case involved a client who presented as male in the workplace for many years without incident. Then, a supervisor learned
that the employee was transgender and revealed that information to the rest of the staff. Deniston said the employee endured two years of merciless harassment.

As part of the LGBTQ+ community and as executive director of Dolan Law’s in-house Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, Deniston said it was rewarding to work on behalf of someone facing discrimination.

“They feel such tremendous relief that they’re speaking to somebody who understands them. I feel very protective of that community,” she said. “This particular gentleman was very, very isolated in his work environment and had really no allies whatsoever, aside from me and my firm.”

The matter was resolved on undisclosed terms.

In the course of Deniston’s career, she’s advocated for clients against big corporate defendants, including Uber Technologies, Inc., Kaiser Permanente, Chevron Corp., and The Walt Disney Co. She has secured settlements in the six- and seven-figure range.

She’s also represented clients from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds, from blue-collar to C-suite executives, across a variety of industries. Deniston said she works to become a subject-matter expert on each client’s job and to approach their situation with empathy. 

“The more you expand your mind about what is out there and different people’s experiences, the more you can appreciate their struggles and have compassion for their experiences,” she said.

Personal-injury perspective

While employment law is Deniston’s primary focus, she’s developed a niche in personal-injury law since joining Dolan Law. As personal-injury cases are more likely to go to trial than employment cases, Deniston said they give her an opportunity to build her trial experience.

Among her most noteworthy recent cases was Guzman et al. v. Morning Star Trucking Company, LLC, et al., in Sacramento Superior Court. Deniston and attorney Anna Pantsulaya second-chaired alongside lead counsel Chris Dolan. The Dolan Law team was able to secure a $17.2 million jury verdict for client Lethesia Guzman against tomato producer Morning Star Co. after an 11-week trial.

Deniston likened the trial process to a marathon.

“It was almost like I got three little trial experiences in one trial, so it was kind of amazing. It was really wild and crazy, very long and exhausting, with lots thrown at us every single day,” she said.

The case centered on a tragic pedestrian-versus-vehicle accident. Guzman and her fiancé’s car broke down early one morning along the Yolo Causeway, a 3.2-mile-long elevated highway viaduct on Interstate 80 that crosses the Yolo Bypass floodplain. With the car’s hazard lights illuminated and while the couple was on the phone with a California Highway Patrol dispatcher, a Morningstar truck overloaded with tomato beds crashed into their car. The couple standing on the highway shoulder was hit by the car, the impact flinging them off the causeway to the ground 30 feet below. Guzman was injured but survived; her fiancé was killed instantly.

The discovery process in the case found that the tomato truck driver was distracted and that the truck was in violation of numerous vehicle codes. The jury awarded $11 million in compensatory damages and $6 million in punitive damages, finding that the corporate defendants acted with malice and reckless disregard for safety.

The Guzman case earned Deniston and her colleagues the Marin Trial Lawyers Association’s 2025 Trial Lawyers of the Year award. 

The complexity of the case and the opportunity to watch the legal team at work in the courtroom were well worth the long hours, Deniston said. 

“It was rewarding, it was challenging, and the lessons I learned during that trial will forever inform how I will approach future trials, regardless of what the topic is,” she said.

Seeking new challenges

Deniston said her dad, Martin Deniston of the Los Angeles law firm Wilson Elser, always encouraged her to pursue a profession in which she never stops learning. Plaintiff law has fit that need, tapping into her intrinsic curiosity.

“Every single case is a new opportunity and a completely new set of facts to analyze,” she said.

Beyond her own practice, Deniston is also interested in advancing the legal profession, serving on numerous lawyers’ associations, including the Consumer Attorneys of California. For CAOC, she serves on its executive committee, board of directors, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Committee, and Women’s Caucus.

At CAOC’s annual convention this past November, Deniston spoke on a panel about free and inexpensive discovery mechanisms, including
obtaining public records and taking witness statements.

“I’m most active in CAOC just because of the breadth of influence and their mission,” Deniston said. “I just absolutely love this CAOC community and what that organization is up to at every level, politically and legislatively. It’s pretty incredible to be a part of it.” “I’m definitely a joiner. I just say ‘yes,’ and figure it out later,” she laughed.

While Deniston likes to stay busy, she makes time for recreation. She reads, sketches, paints, sews, and makes pottery.

“It’s very relaxing to me to put on an audiobook and just work on creating something with my hands for a few hours. It’s using the other side of my brain,” she said. “My friends make fun of me because I call it ‘active relaxing.’ I don’t really relax like a normal person, where I’m just sitting on the couch watching TV. I need to be doing something or creating something.”

Deniston is also an avid backpacker who’s traversed trails throughout California, often taking along first-time backpackers to introduce them to the wonders of nature.

“It really rejuvenates me to get out into the wilderness, and it’s something that I’m driven by all the time for my mental health,” she said.

Yosemite National Park is her first love, but the Trinity Alps have become a favorite hiking spot in recent years. Because it is more remote and less well-known, the Northern California mountain range attracts smaller crowds to take in awe-inspiring views.

“Some of these trails, you could confuse them for Switzerland or the Cascade Mountains,” Deniston said.

Deniston describes herself as a bit of a “weekend warrior,” throwing a backpack in her car trunk on a Friday afternoon and hiking until it’s time to come home on Sunday. She hasn’t backpacked as often on her travels outside California, but would love to someday hike in Alaska’s Denali National Park and the Himalayas in Asia.

“I think one of my biggest fears in life is becoming bored. And I’m not the type of person to become bored, because I’m interested and curious in so many things, not just in what I do, but also in people and places and experiences,” Deniston said.

Deniston said that lawyering is unique in its craft because it requires you to always be a student. It’s not enough to know the ever-changing laws, but to know how the laws apply to the facts of your case and be able to argue from that perspective. Deniston relishes that the job is a persistent test of her intellect.

“There really aren’t that many professions that can say that every single day is a new challenge, which is going to present you with something new to figure out,” Deniston said. “As a person that’s just constantly curious about the human experience, I couldn’t imagine a more perfect career for me.”

Jennifer McEntee is a longtime freelance writer based in San Diego. She specializes in feature stories on a range of topics. Contact her This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..