Chief Deputy Yvonne Meré recognized for groundbreaking work leading all litigation in the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (September 17, 2025) — The Daily Journal announced today that the publication named Chief Deputy City Attorney Yvonne Meré as one of this year’s Top 100 Lawyers for her outstanding work overseeing all litigation in the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office.
As Chief Deputy City Attorney, Meré supervises dozens of lawyers litigating complex, affirmative, and defensive matters pending in state and federal court, in trial and on appeal. In her 20-year tenure with the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office, she has prosecuted affirmative consumer protection and public nuisance cases as well as protected San Francisco taxpayer dollars through defensive litigation.
“Yvonne has been a brilliant litigator, strategic thinker, and passionate advocate for San Francisco,” said City Attorney Chiu. “I’m particularly proud of her recent work to protect women and girls from online sexual abuse with our Office’s groundbreaking lawsuit against websites that create deepfake pornography. Her deep sense of justice and thoughtful approach to the law make her eminently deserving of this recognition.”
“Working at the City Attorney’s Office and being a local government lawyer has been the honor and privilege of a lifetime,” said Chief Deputy Yvonne Meré. “I am so grateful for this recognition and share it with the talented and committed legal professionals that I have the pleasure to work with every day. At a time where confidence in government and law may be at its lowest ebb, the professionals at the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office embody the very best of public service.”
In August 2024, Meré led the City Attorney’s Office in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against some of the world’s largest websites that create and distribute nonconsensual AI-generated pornography. In addition to being a top litigator, Meré is also a dedicated mother to her daughter and was inspired to pursue this case to protect women and girls across the globe from exploitation by websites that create deepfake pornography, revenge pornography, and child pornography. As a result of this ongoing investigation and lawsuit, 11 websites that created nonconsensual deepfake pornography have been shut down or are no longer available in California.
Meré is leading the City Attorney’s Office in its fight to protect the City and County of San Francisco against overreach by the Trump Administration. As the daughter of Cuban immigrants, Meré has a personal connection to the Office’s work protecting immigrant families. She leads the Office’s cases challenging the Trump Administration’s attempts to end birthright citizenship and to defund sanctuary jurisdictions and commandeer local law enforcement to take on the federal government’s immigration responsibilities.
Meré joined the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office in 2004 and before promoting to the Chief Deputy City Attorney role, she led the Office’s Complex & Affirmative Litigation Team and before that, its Code Enforcement Team. In addition to supervising and litigating cases, Meré has served as a guest lecturer at Yale Law School as part of the San Francisco Affirmative Litigation Project, a collaboration between Yale Law School and the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office, and served on the Office’s Amicus Committee.
As the first Latina to hold the position of Chief Deputy City Attorney, Meré is actively involved in the Office’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, previously co-chairing the Office’s Racial Equity Task Force and serving as a member of the Women’s Initiative and La Alianza officewide affinity groups.
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