2022 Women to Watch Awards Americas EMEA
Gretchen Hoff Varner Partner
Covington & Burling LLP
San Francisco
One of the things Gretchen Hoff Varner loves about representing policyholders in insurance cases — and led her to focus on it in her practice — is it can result in a cash payment “that makes a huge difference in their lives.”
She also enjoys the opportunity it gives her to talk with judges and juries as she represents her clients. “My goal is to be authentic,” she said. “I really think of juries as if they could be my siblings.”
Juries can sense whether an attorney is trustworthy or unreliable, “so what I want more than anything is for them to understand who I am and that they can trust me.”
“She’s a highly capable lawyer, a wonderful person and easy to work with,” said Frank Murphy, senior counsel at the Brooklyn Union Gas Co., which conducts business as National Grid New York.
Mr. Murphy worked with Ms. Hoff Varner on an insurance coverage case in which she successfully obtained a jury verdict in 30-year-old litigation after a month-long trial. “I hold her in the highest regard,” he said.
Ms. Hoff Varner’s mother, a former teacher, works at Fresno Pacific University in teacher education, while her father was a Presbyterian minister before becoming a teacher. She is the oldest of four siblings.
After attending public high school in Fresno, California, she graduated from Harvard University and then Yale Law School before returning to California to be closer to her family.
Ms. Hoff Varner strives to help younger women in the legal profession.
“The sad reality is that in the legal profession we still do not have enough women in senior roles, and so I’m really committed to supporting young women as litigators,” she said.
Her husband, Charles, whom she met at Harvard, is associate director of Stanford University’s Stanford Center on Poverty & Inequality. Daughter Louisa is 12, and son Charlie is 9.
Ms. Hoff Varner’s spare-time activities include leading a Girl Scout troop. To those who think her day job is difficult, she says, “You should try leading 11 seventh-grade girls!”
