Esther Kim Chang

Partner

(510) 992-4560 | echang@nortonlaw.com | VCF

Esther Chang is a seasoned trial attorney with deep expertise spanning intellectual property, commercial litigation, and complex disputes.  While she maintains a strong focus on patent and trade secret matters, her practice encompasses commercial contract disputes, consumer class action litigation, and investor disputes in both state and federal courts.  She has more than a decade of experience representing high‑technology and life sciences companies in a wide range of industries, including autonomous systems, smartphone technology, mobile device management, semiconductor chips, video compression technology, antibody engineering, and medical devices. 

Esther has a proven track record of securing major courtroom victories, most recently obtaining a $38 million verdict in Fresno Superior Court on behalf of her clients, after a hard-fought seven-week trial.  She is also experienced in managing complex litigation, including the high-profile Waymo v. Uber case relating to autonomous vehicle technology and a precedent-setting smartphone case that resulted in a jury verdict of over $1 billion.

Esther brings a unique perspective to complex commercial disputes through her background in institutional finance.  Before law school, she worked at Morgan Stanley Capital International Barra, where she developed financial models and analytics for portfolio risk management, providing her with insight into investment decision-making, due diligence processes, and the sophisticated financial instruments often at issue in investor disputes.

Esther is a registered patent attorney and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.  She earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.  Esther received her law degree from the George Washington University Law School, where she was elected to the Order of the Coif and was a member of the George Washington Law Review.

Before joining The Norton Law Firm, Esther spent twelve years as a litigator at Morrison & Foerster, where she was a member of the intellectual property group and handled some of the firm’s most complex and high-stakes matters.