Danielle Hesse is a senior associate in the Los Angeles office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. She practices in the Firm’s Trials and Litigation Practice Groups.

Danielle has handled a broad range of cases at all stages of litigation, including trade secret disputes, consumer class actions, employment disputes—including wage and hour, classification, and discrimination claims—breach of contract, cybersecurity, real estate matters, and law firm defense. She has vast experience with all aspects of pre-trial discovery, motion practice, negotiating favorable settlements for her clients, and she excels in taking cases to both jury and bench trials.

Danielle has prepared dozens of fact witnesses to testify at deposition and trial, and she has extensive experience working with technical and damages experts on critical reports and testimony. 

Danielle’s representative matters include:

• Securing a total denial of trade secret misappropriation claims for a top mortgage servicer after six-week arbitration;
• Securing broad preliminary injunction in DraftKings’ trade secrets and noncompete lawsuit against the former head of its VIP business (DraftKings Inc. v. Michael Hermalyn (D. Mass. 2024));
• Reaching highly favorable settlement for one of the largest tech companies in the world in wage and hour employment dispute;
•  Winning $27 million jury verdict and $10 million punitive damages verdict for real estate company against oil company defendant in breach of contract case after month-long jury trial*

Prior to joining the Firm, Danielle was an associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, where she handled a wide range of complex civil litigation matters.

Danielle earned her law degree in 2017 from the UCLA School of Law, where she earned the Masin Family Academic Excellence Gold Award in Cybersecurity. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and English & Creative Writing from Emory University in 2013, where she was a member of the Political Science National Honor Society, Pi Sigma Alpha, and was the Writing Editor of Alloy Literary Magazine.

Danielle is a member of the State Bar of California and is admitted to practice law before the United States District Court for the Central District of California, the Northern District of California, the Southern District of California, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.