Ms. McDonald is a recent new addition to the Bates Winter & Talmachoff team as an associate attorney.

Ms. McDonald was admitted to the California State Bar in 1991, after graduation from the UCLA School of Law. While at UCLA Law, she earned American Jurisprudence awards in the law of Contracts and Property. She earned an honors position as a Teaching Assistant in Legal Research and Writing . She also competed in Moot Court and was a founding member of the Women’s Law Journal.

Ms. McDonald is a third-generation attorney. After successfully passing the California bar, she joined her family’s law firm, which was a general litigation practice focused on commercial law, creditors’ rights and bankruptcy. After several years in litigation and appeals, she accepted an in-house position with a company based in New York as General Counsel and Vice-President of Strategic Planning. Eventually, she left corporate practice and returned to her litigation roots as a sole practitioner, simultaneously working in an “of counsel” role with several different firms, especially on appellate matters. In recent years, Ms. McDonald worked in a law-related position for a non-profit organization, with a focus on employer-employee relations.

Ms. McDonald is also licensed in Nevada (currently inactive). She is admitted to the United States District Court for the Districts of Central, Northern and Eastern California, as well as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She recently became a member of the Association of Defense Counsel of Northern California.