Nadia H. Dahab

Nadia is a skilled trial and appellate advocate. She represents individuals in consumer, civil rights, and class action litigation, and loves an opportunity to use her formidable writing skills and her courtroom grit to develop trial and appellate strategies.

Appellate advocacy is Nadia’s passion. With an intimate understanding of the appellate litigation landscape, Nadia’s advocacy work starts pretrial, where she consults with trial counsel to formulate trial strategies and ways to best protect their trial court victories. Nadia has built a robust appellate practice representing clients in the state appellate courts, the federal circuit courts of appeal, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Before joining Sugerman Dahab, Nadia served as Senior Litigation Attorney for the Portland non-profit Innovation Law Lab, where she was co-lead and class counsel on several complex matters challenging Presidential and federal agency actions seeking to restrict the rights of immigrants and refugees. Nadia continues to focus her pro bono work on the fight for immigrant and refugee justice. She began her legal practice—and developed many of her litigation skills—at the Portland law firm of Stoll Berne.

Nadia graduated from the University of Oregon and served as a law clerk to Justice Rives Kistler of the Oregon Supreme Court and Mary H. Murguia and Susan P. Graber of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Busch v. McGinnis Waste Systems Inc., 366 Or. 628 (2020)

Busch was a personal injury case in which the Oregon Supreme Court struck down Oregon’s $500,000 cap on noneconomic damages in personal injury cases. Scott Busch was struck by a truck in downtown Portland and suffered severe and life-changing injuries. The jury awarded him $10.5 million in noneconomic damages, but the trial court capped the award at $500,000, pursuant to the statutory cap. Nadia, appearing as amicus curiae on behalf of the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association, helped trial and appellate counsel John Coletti and Gene Hallman obtain a groundbreaking victory for injured Oregonians by arguing that the statutory cap violates the Oregon Constitution’s remedy clause in all cases.

Christian v. Umpqua Bank, 984 F.3d 801 (9th Cir. 2020)

Christian is another case in which Nadia helped secure a tremendous appellate victory, including a complete reversal of summary judgment and an important, precedential decision from the Ninth Circuit addressing hostile work environment and discrimination claims under state and federal law.

Barbosa v. Barr, 926 F.3d 1053 (9th Cir. 2019)

In this appeal, Nadia appeared pro bono to assist with a petition for review from the Board of Immigration Appeals. The Board had found the petitioner, a longtime Oregonian, ineligible for relief from removal. This case resulted in a published opinion from the Ninth Circuit concluding that third-degree robbery under Oregon law is not categorically a crime involving moral turpitude.

Bohr v. Tillamook County Creamery Association, 19CV36208 (Mult. Cnty. Cir. Ct.)

For years, Tillamook Creamery marketed its artisan cheeses as products of the small family farms of Tillamook County. The images, ads, and marketing materials highlighted dairy cows on verdant pastures under the blue skies of the Tillamook Valley.

In truth, two-thirds of Tillamook’s milk comes from a mega-dairy, where cows are kept 24/7 in crowded, unsanitary conditions. Sugerman Dahab, alongside Animal Legal Defense Fund, represents consumers who challenge Tillamook Creamery’s misrepresentations as a violation of Oregon’s Unlawful Trade Practices Act. The case is currently pending in the Oregon Supreme Court.