Mary Katherine Back is a seasoned litigator with 20 years of experience. She concentrates her practice on labor and employment, general liability, and product liability. Mary is actively involved with all aspects of litigation, including discovery and depositions, dispositive and pre-trial motions, trial preparation, and settlement in California state and federal courts. Ms. Back is skilled at developing defense strategies and themes, preparing corporate and expert witnesses, handling settlement negotiations, and trying cases.
Before joining GRSM, Mary was a Partner in the San Francisco office of a national law firm where she represented a broad range of clients in employment disputes, including wage and hour and harassment suits in addition to defending clients in general civil litigation matters, including catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death claims, product liability claims, trucking and transportation claims, premises liability and governmental tort liability claims. Prior to that role, Ms. Back was a senior civil litigator responsible for the management of many high-profile state and federal toxic tort, medical malpractice, and mass torts-pharmaceutical matters.
Mary clerked for the Justices of the Superior Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts immediately upon completion of law school. While in law school, Mary clerked for the Honorable Napoleon A. Jones, Jr. of the US District Court for the Southern District of California and was also an editorial writer for the nationally published Lawyers Weekly newspaper.
Mary actively volunteers with the Justice & Diversity Center of the San Francisco Bar, dedicating her time to pro bono cases since 2018.
Admissions
- California
- Massachusetts
- U.S. District Court, Eastern, Southern, Central, and Northern Districts of California
Memberships
- American Bar Association, 2004–present
- Queen's Bench Bar Association, 2005–present
- San Francisco Bar Association, 2008–present
- Marin County Women Lawyers, 2016–present