Claire Loebs Davis

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Claire Loebs Davis is a seasoned litigator who focuses on using her commercial litigation experience to assist nonprofit entities and advocate for animal and environmental causes. Claire is Co-Chair of Lane Powell’s Nonprofit Team and its Animal and Earth Advocacy Team. She also chairs the Pro Bono Committee in Seattle.

Claire has more than a decade of experience in commercial litigation, including trial and appellate advocacy, and securities and corporate governance litigation. She has represented a wide range of companies and their directors and officers, including Ambassador’s Group, Biovest International, Cell Therapeutics, Dendreon Corporation, Lihua International, Micron Technology, Nordstrom, PremierWest Bancorp, Primo Water, Sterling Financial, Washington Mutual, Washington Banking, WSB Financial Group, and Zumiez.

Claire has assisted nonprofit organizations with a variety of legal needs, including:

  • Helping them to incorporate, draft governance documents and file for federal 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status;
  • Advising them on employment matters, risk assessment and issues of corporate governance; and
  • Representing them in a variety of commercial disputes, such as actions for breach of contract, RICO violations and defamation.

Throughout her legal career, Claire has focused on advocacy on behalf of animals and the environment, including serving as a general counsel and legal consultant for Best Friends Animal Society, the country’s largest animal sanctuary and a leading national proponent of companion animal welfare.  Since leaving Best Friends to enter private practice, Claire has represented nonprofit organizations including the Animal Legal Defense Fund and the Center for Biological Diversity, in addition to multiple regional animal rescues and sanctuaries. She has also been extensively involved in community advocacy efforts, including leading a successful grassroots effort to reform King County, Washington’s animal shelters.

Claire defended the former Administrative Director of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in a contempt action brought by the Institute for Cetacean Research, a Japanese whaling entity, related to Sea Shepherd’s interference with Japan’s killing of whales in the Southern Ocean. Following a two-week trial in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and extensive appellate practice, Claire secured a defense verdict for her client. She subsequently represented Sea Shepherd and its founder, Paul Watson, in litigation against the Institute for Cetacean Research that raised multiple unique questions of standing, animal rights and international law.

As the Chair of the firm’s Seattle Pro Bono Committee, Claire led the citywide effort to provide legal assistance at SeaTac airport to travelers affected by President Trump’s travel bans. She has shown a commitment throughout her career to pro bono work, advising numerous nonprofit entities, volunteering at a variety of local legal clinics, representing asylum seekers in immigration court, working with the American Civil Liberties Union to bring an action against the state of California on behalf of English language learners in the state’s public schools, and submitting amicus briefs in State of Washington v. Trump and State of Hawaii v. Trump.

Claire joined Lane Powell from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in December 2012. She graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 2003 (class rank 2 of 387), and clerked for the Honorable Richard Nygaard of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Before attending law school, Claire was a newspaper reporter for several years, primarily covering legal and political issues, and winning multiple state and national writing awards.

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Firm/Organization: Lane Powell PC
Blogs: D&O Developments, D&O Discourse

Latest Articles

The 11th Circuit ignored the potential application of the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Omnicare, and instead reached back to its own precedent dating from 1979, in holding that plaintiffs are foreclosed from bringing a claim that a company misled shareholders about its real motivations for engaging in a stock repurchase program. In its per curiam unpublished opinion in Henningsen v. ADT Corp. (“ADT”), 2016 WL 4660814 (11th Cir. 2016), the 11th Circuit affirmed the…
The Third Circuit engaged in a searching analysis of plaintiffs’ falsity and scienter allegations and found them insufficient under the exacting standards of the Reform Act, upholding the district court’s dismissal of the complaint in OFI Asset Management v. Cooper Tire & Rubber, — F.3d —, 2016 WL 4434404 (3d Cir. 2016). In its ruling, the Third Circuit also had some harsh words for plaintiffs’ “kitchen sink” pleading style, finding that it “has been a…
The Sixth Circuit has joined a majority of the other circuit courts in recognizing that loss causation can be shown through a “materialization of the risk” theory,” reversing the dismissal of a case against Freddie Mac stemming from the 2007 mortgage crisis. In Ohio Public Employees Retirement Sys. v. Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (“Freddie Mac”), — F.3d. —, 2016 WL 3916011 (6th Cir. 2016), the Sixth Circuit found that under “the clear weight of…
In this installment of the D&O Discourse series “5 Wishes for Securities Litigation Defense,” we discuss the third of five changes that would significantly improve securities litigation defense:  to make the Supreme Court’s Omnicare decision a primary tool in the defense of securities class actions. As a reminder, in Omnicare, Inc. v. Laborers District Council Construction Industry Pension Fund, 135 S. Ct. 1318 (2015), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a statement of opinion is only false under…
Issued just shy of the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Omnicare decision in Omnicare, the Second Circuit’s ruling in Tongue v. Sanofi, 816 F.3d 199 (2d Cir. 2016), is the most significant post-Omnicare ruling thus far. The Sanofi court not only correctly applied the Court’s rulings on the standard for evaluating statements of opinion, but also appropriately highlighted the Court’s emphasis on the importance of context in evaluating allegedly false statements. Other circuit court…
In our post in the immediate wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Amgen Inc. v. Connecticut Retirement Plans, we concluded that rather than being a new threat to the defense of securities class actions, Amgen basically endorsed the status quo: In holding that plaintiffs do not need to establish that allegedly false statements were material to the market before they can gain class certification, the Amgen Court reinforced the rule that is already followed…