Overview
Taylor Benninger is a litigation associate in the San Francisco office of Munger, Tolles & Olson whose practice focuses on complex civil litigation, intellectual property litigation and employee mobility.
Taylor has particular experience in trade secret matters and labor and employment disputes. She has successfully represented both trade secret plaintiffs and defendants at all stages of litigation, in industries ranging from transportation to technology to health care and beyond. She also frequently advises companies on employee mobility issues and represents employers defending against employment discrimination claims.
Additionally, Taylor regularly litigates her clients’ high-stakes requests for preliminary relief. She has drafted motions for temporary restraining orders, preliminary injunctions and other emergency relief on tight timelines in cases that involve everything from trade secret misappropriation to unconstitutional detention.
Prior to joining the firm, Taylor served as a law clerk to Judge John B. Owens of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She previously served as a Rule 180 Prosecutor in the Yosemite Prosecutor’s Office, where she represented the United States in misdemeanor criminal cases.
Taylor earned her J.D. from Stanford Law School, where she was awarded class prizes for outstanding performance in property law and intellectual property law, among others. Through Stanford’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, she worked on the successful cert petition and merits briefing in Lange v. California, in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that pursuit of a fleeing misdemeanor suspect does not categorically qualify as an exigent circumstance justifying a warrantless entry.
Capabilities
Practices
Industries
Experience
Trade Secret Litigation
Taylor maintains a very active trade secret practice representing both plaintiffs and defendants. She helps clients succeed at critical junctures in their cases, whether that means obtaining a preliminary injunction, an order of dismissal or a negotiated resolution of the litigation.
Notable cases and matters
Yipit, LLC (a subsidiary of the Carlyle Group) in bringing an action for trade secret misappropriation in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
IAG Fund II, LP and IAG Capital Holdings, II in a lawsuit alleging trade secret misappropriation and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, in which MTO successfully obtained dismissal of our clients at the pleading stage.
Lore Health, a health care app, in a trade secret dispute in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota filed by UnitedHealth Group, Inc. and United Healthcare Services, Inc., which settled after MTO filed a motion to dismiss.
Labor and Employment
Taylor maintains a robust practice spanning all aspects of labor and employment disputes and employee mobility. Her work ranges from advising companies about the latest developments in non-competition agreements to defending companies against employment discrimination claims.
Notable cases and matters:
Suns Legacy Partners, L.L.C. in multiple lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, alleging, inter alia, race discrimination, sexual harassment, equal pay act violations and worker misclassification.
Multiple clients, including a major financial company and a major bank, in pre-litigation advising regarding the enforceability of noncompetition agreements, garden leave agreements, non-solicitation agreements and other employee mobility issues.
Emergency Relief
Time and again, Taylor has assisted her clients with high-stakes and time-sensitive requests for temporary restraining orders, injunctive relief, and other forms of emergency relief.
Notable cases and matters:
Yipit, LLC (a subsidiary of the Carlyle Group) in seeking a preliminary injunction against a former employee and competitor to prevent further misappropriation of Yipit’s trade secrets.
Employees of a high-protein food company in obtaining a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of an overbroad invention assignment agreement that violated California’s public policy against non-competition agreements.
A putative class of pre-trial detainees in obtaining a landmark preliminary injunction against the enforcement of LA County’s unconstitutional cash bail policy.
Utility Condemnations
Taylor advises and represents electric utilities facing threatened municipalizations in which local government entities attempt to condemn a subset of the utilities’ assets and carve a hole in their integrated electric grids.
Notable cases and matters:
Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E)
- in a petition brought by the City and County of San Francisco (CCSF) asking the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to determine how much CCSF would have to compensate PG&E to acquire PG&E’s transmission and distribution assets used to serve customers in San Francisco, in what would be one of the largest municipal condemnations of utility assets in history.
- in a condemnation opposing a threatened taking by the Southern San Joaquin Irrigation District (SSJID), which seeks to condemn certain of PG&E’s electric distribution assets in California’s Central Valley.
More
- California Lawyer Attorneys of the Year (CLAY), along with other attorneys at MTO, Civil Rights Corps, Public Justice and Hadsell Stormer Renick & Dai LLP, for securing a historic preliminary injunction pausing the enforcement of L.A. County’s cash bail schedule, 2024
- Represented plaintiffs in a constitutional challenge to the use of pre-arraignment money bail in Los Angeles, which resulted in a groundbreaking preliminary injunction and caused the Los Angeles Superior Court to overhaul its pre-arraignment bail system.
- Won asylum for her client, a gay man from Senegal, after two merits hearings, at which she handled the direct examinations of multiple expert witnesses.
Publications
- “Keeping Secrets Safe: Considerations for Trade Secret Protection in the United States amid Biotechnology Layoffs,” BioProcess International, co-author, April 2025
- “Trade Secrets and Artificial Intelligence: How Generative AI Might Affect Trade Secret Protection, and Considerations for Practitioners,” Practising Law Institute, co-author, November 2024
- “Virtual Justice? A National Study Analyzing the Transition to Remote Criminal Court,” Stanford Criminal Justice Center, co-author, August 2021
