Vanessa C. Deniston

Vanessa Deniston is a Senior Associate Attorney at the Dolan Law Firm. Ms. Deniston is based out of the Dolan Law Firm’s Oakland office and focuses her practice on employment law (including wrongful termination, harassment, retaliation and whistleblower issues in the workplace), and personal injury law (including matters involving catastrophic injury, premises liability, motor vehicle accidents, bicycle/pedestrian accidents, wrongful death, slip and fall accidents, and products liability). Ms. Deniston also handles sexual assault cases involving rideshare vehicles and arising in the workplace environment. 

Ms. Deniston utilizes a client-driven approach with each and every representation she takes on. She truly enjoys and spends time getting to know her clients, connecting with them on a personal level, and meaningfully involving them in the litigation process, so each client feels comfortable with the representation and understands their role in the litigation. Ms. Deniston is widely recognized by her clients for possessing these qualities, as evidenced by her 20+ five-star reviews on Avvo, a website providing legal resources to the public. 

Ms. Deniston firmly believes justice on behalf of her clients is best obtained through hard work, creative thinking, grit, compassion, and a strong attorney-client relationship.

Ms. Deniston is an experienced and forceful advocate that has litigated employment and personal injury cases against multiple Fortune 500 companies, some of which include Uber Technologies, Kaiser Permanente, CVS Health, Chevron, Wyndham Destinations, Walt Disney, Lockheed Martin, AT&T, General Mills, Genworth Financial, Whole Foods, and Sutter Health. Vanessa has obtained multiple six and seven figure resolutions on behalf of her clients. She excels in all phases of civil litigation including case evaluation and investigation, pre-litigation demands, fact discovery, depositions, motion practice, mediation, expert discovery, trial, and settlement negotiations.

In her employment practice, Ms. Deniston has represented a wide array of workers throughout the California, including corporate executives, healthcare workers, sales representatives, educators, factory workers, day laborers, airline employees, hospitality staff, tech representatives, drivers, and many others.  Ms. Deniston zealously advocates for employees in cases involving:

Age Discrimination
Disability Discrimination
Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and/or California Family Rights Act violations
Ethnicity and National Origin Discrimination
Gender and Sex Discrimination
Human Trafficking;
Pregnancy Discrimination;
Race Discrimination
Retaliation and Wrongful Termination
Sexual Harassment
Sexual Orientation Discrimination
Wage & Hour violations including failure to pay overtime, break time or vacation time; and 
Whistleblower Retaliation

In her personal injury practice, Ms. Deniston has represented consumers, pedestrians, drivers, bicyclists, invitees, licensees, tenants, and other victims of negligent behavior. She has successfully represented injured individuals in cases involving:

Bicycle Accidents
Car Accidents
Motorcycle Accidents
Pedestrian Accidents
Traumatic Brain Injury
Premises Liability (“Slip and Fall” cases)
Public Transportation Accidents
Hazardous Roadways
Common Carrier Accidents
Assault and Battery
Hate Crime
Elder Abuse
Products Liability
Wrongful Death

Ms. Deniston was selected as a Rising Star, in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 by the Northern California Super Lawyers. This recognition is bestowed on less than 2.5% of all attorneys.

Ms. Deniston is the 2022 Chair of the Dolan Law Firm’s Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) Committee, devoted to advancing and nurturing a diverse, equal, and inclusive workplace that reflects the communities the Dolan Law Firm serves.  Ms. Deniston also serves as the Education Chair of the Diversity Committee for the Consumer Attorneys of California (CAOC) and is a recent graduate of the CAOC Leadership Academy. In addition to these leadership positions, Ms. Deniston is an active member of California Employment Lawyers Association (CELA), a statewide organization of over 1,200 California attorneys who devote their practice to representing employees, and the Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom (BALIF), a community of LGBTQI+ legal professionals that envisions a world where LGBTQI+ people live with dignity and equality under the law.  Ms. Deniston also volunteers in an annual Mock Trial program for young adults through the YMCA, where she serves as an attorney coach and mentor. 

Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Deniston worked at several plaintiff-side employment and civil rights law firms in California. Ms. Deniston graduated magna cum laude from University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2007 and received her J.D. from Suffolk Law School in Boston in 2010.  Ms. Deniston also served as a judicial extern for U.S. District Court Judge Otis D. Wright II in Los Angeles during law school. Ms. Deniston is admitted to practice in both California and Massachusetts. 

Ms. Deniston is an avid domestic and world traveler with a strong interest in other cultures, histories and experiences. In her free time, you can find Ms. Deniston traveling the world or backpacking all over California with her wife and her beloved dog Atticus. Ms. Deniston is also seamstress and during the height of the pandemic, Ms. Deniston sewed over 2,000 masks, raising over $6,000 for various non-profit organizations including Common Cause, the Bail Project, W.H.O., Stop AAPI Hate and the Loveland Foundation.