Before David Sanford began litigating gender bias claims against large law firms, he didn’t have any master plan to effect change for women in the legal profession, he says. But after several high-profile cases, and settlements worth millions of dollars, his work has shined a light on Big Law’s gender gap and helped to chip away at stubborn inequality.

Sanford, chairman of the class action firm Sanford Heisler Sharp, has guided several female partners who felt they were given short shrift at their firms to settlements with the likes of Chadbourne & Parke (now part of Norton Rose Fulbright), the now-collapsed Sedgwick and Proskauer Rose. He’s also lead counsel on similar cases pending against Jones Day, Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart and others.