Rachana (“Radha”) Pathak co-leads Stris & Maher LLP’s award-winning Pension Litigation and Healthcare Litigation Practices. She is one of the country’s preeminent plaintiff-side ERISA litigators and a nationally respected appellate advocate whose work has shaped the law governing employee benefits, healthcare, and fiduciary responsibility.
Lawdragon Honors
| Honor | Year | Practice |
|---|---|---|
| The 2026 Lawdragon 500 Leading Global Litigators | 2026 | Litigation, Appellate |
Pathak is one of the nation’s leading authorities on employee benefits law. Clients and other law firms alike regularly seek her counsel on complex issues involving retirement plans, healthcare benefits, fiduciary duties, and employee rights under ERISA and the Affordable Care Act. An elected fellow of the California Academy of Appellate Lawyers, Pathak is also a prominent appellate advocate. She has litigated six merits cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2017, she received the Daily Journal’s California Attorney Lawyer of the Year (CLAY) award for her victory in Montanile v. Board of Trustees, 577 U.S. 136 (2016), a landmark Supreme Court decision addressing ERISA remedies. Pathak has also handled significant appeals in virtually every federal circuit. Over the last two years alone, she has argued—and won—seven separate appeals in the Second, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits.
Before dedicating herself to private practice full-time, Pathak spent fifteen years as a law professor. She was also a law clerk for the Honorable Raymond C. Fisher on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Pathak received her J.D., cum laude, from New York University School of Law where she was an editor of the New York University Law Review. She received her B.A. in Political Science with honors from the University of California at Berkeley.