November 13, 2025
Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC partner Christine E. Webber helped secure more than $65 million in settlements with major institutions over allegations of gender discrimination, earning her a spot as one of the 2025 Law360 Employment MVPs.
Her biggest accomplishment:
Webber, who co-chairs Cohen Milstein’s civil rights and employment practice, specializes in large, high-profile class actions, and recently played a leading role in the nearly $23 million resolution of a major case alleging the Federal Bureau of Investigation drove out female trainees by targeting them with unfair discipline.
The case was filed in mid-2019 by more than a dozen women who said they were systematically driven out of the FBI agent training program and subjected to sexist double standards.
After years of litigation, the two sides brokered a $22.6 million deal toward the end of 2024, including $19.4 million in back pay, interest, front pay, lost retirement savings and other damages for 34 class members, and up to $2.7 million in attorney fees, costs and expenses.
Under the terms of the pact, which secured final court approval in February, class members could also request reinstatement as FBI trainees. If they completed basic training, their pay grade would be adjusted to what it would have been if they had graduated with their original class.
Webber was co-lead counsel on the case, and she said she’s proud of both the financial and nonfinancial aspects of the deal they were able to negotiate.
“It was a substantial amount per person that really recognized the damage that was done to these women by being excluded from the FBI,” Webber said of the monetary relief.
She also said it was gratifying to see a class member take advantage of the pact’s reinstatement provision.
“We already had our first graduate from the FBI academy, a brand-new special agent who was a class member who is now getting to serve as a special agent,” she said. “That was very exciting to see. A really satisfying result in that case.”
Another notable case:
Webber also played a pivotal role in a $43.25 million settlement with Disney over allegations that the entertainment giant paid thousands of women in middle management less than their male colleagues.
In that state court case, which was also filed in 2019, current and former employees of various Disney-related entities said the company systematically paid female employees in California less than men for substantially similar jobs, regularly passed women over for promotion and loaded them with extra work without providing additional pay.
The settlement, covering over 15,000 female midlevel managers, was unveiled in November 2024, and received final court approval in September.
In addition to providing compensation to the class, Disney agreed to hire an industrial and organizational psychologist to provide training to compensation personnel and a labor economist to conduct a pay equity analysis for California employees over the next three years.
“That was something I’m very proud of,” Webber said of the pact.
. . .
Why she’s an employment attorney:
In the grocery store where Webber’s mother used to work, Webber recalls a clear dividing line between the male and female employees that helped fuel her interest in civil rights work.
Women were placed in certain positions, like at the registers or in the bakery, while men typically held other roles, including at the meat counter or in produce, Webber said. The positions traditionally given to the male employees had a stronger pipeline to managerial roles, Webber said.
“There seemed to be this really clear pattern of steering women into some jobs and men into other jobs,” Webber said.
This, among other experiences, is what made her want to become a civil rights lawyer, Webber said. Webber told Law360 she went to law school specifically to take on discrimination class actions.
“That struck me. We can’t let that keep happening,” Webber said. “That was one of my motivations for going to law school.”