California Enacts New Law Prohibiting Willful Independent Contractor Misclassification

October.10.2011

Authors

Julia C. Riechert Partner, Employment Law & Litigation, Discrimination, Harassment & Retaliation

Silicon Valley

See my bio

D:+1 650 614 7482
E: [email protected]

Practice:

Employment Law & Litigation
Discrimination, Harassment & Retaliation
Wage and Hour

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Julia C. Riechert Partner

Silicon Valley

Julia is an employment law authority and trial lawyer. She helps companies navigate and resolve challenging workplace issues and has extensive experience in:

Litigating and defeating harassment, discrimination, equal pay, disability and retaliation claims, including #MeToo and whistleblower allegations.
Successfully resolving pre-litigation disputes and employment claims.
The gig economy, independent contractor classification and agency temps, including the ABC test and California's Prop 22.
Wage & hour class and PAGA actions, including defeating class certification for technology and retail companies.
Arbitration agreements, employment policies, anti-harassment training and workplace compliance best practices.
Defending companies against government charges and audits, including unemployment insurance matters.
Employee complaints, workplace investigations, layoffs and employment terminations.
Providing advice and counsel on a wide variety of employment issues for small, medium and large companies.

Julia's clients include Lyft, PayPal, Instacart, Splunk, TaskRabbit, Beyond Meat, Unity Technologies, Williams-Sonoma, Inc., Dropbox and Airbnb. Julia and her Orrick partner Lynne Hermle won the 2017 California Lawyer of the Year award in Labor and Employment from California Lawyer for their defense verdict for SpaceX in a high profile sex harassment, discrimination, retaliation and disability case. The Daily Journal also named their two jury trial wins for SpaceX as top verdicts in 2016 and 2017, both affirmed on appeal. Orrick was named Employment Group of the Year in 2018, 2019 and 2020 by Law360 and The Recorder has named Orrick the "Litigation Department of the Year: Labor and Employment" in California four times.

Side note: Julia also loves animal rescue and drinks lots of coffee.

Jessica Perry Partner, Employment Law & Litigation, Wage and Hour

Silicon Valley

See my bio

D:+1 650 614 7350
E: [email protected]

Practice:

Technology & Innovation Sector
Employment Law & Litigation
Wage and Hour
Class Action Defense
Discrimination, Harassment & Retaliation
Pay Equity

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Jessica Perry Partner

Silicon Valley

Jessica defends employers from discrimination and harassment claims on the basis of gender, race, religion, disability, age and other protected categories. She recently defeated class certification in cases alleging discrimination against women in technical roles for Microsoft and Twitter, earning her The American Lawyer’s "Litigator of the Week” award. She also won a complete defense verdict for Kleiner Perkins in the highly publicized gender discrimination and retaliation case Pao v. Kleiner Perkins, which the Daily Journal named the year’s ‘Top Verdict.’ Her trial victories also include winning defense judgments in cases involving claims of religious discrimination, retaliation and wrongful termination. Jessica also specializes in pay equity matters, including in designing analyses and advising on compliance and risk mitigation. Clients interviewed by Chambers note, “She's very thorough and knows the details and procedure, without allowing anything to fall through the cracks."

Jessica has a winning record in beating back class certification in high stakes wage-and-hour actions in federal and state court, including those brought under the Private Attorney General Act. Having led over 150 high-stakes wage-and-hour class action matters, Jessica has broad experience on virtually every theory of relief. She also offers strategic guidance to help businesses avoid wage-and-hour litigation, particularly companies in the gig economy industry which can be significantly impacted by such matters.

In addition to litigation and counseling, Jessica has successfully guided clients through investigations and audits by the Department of Labor, California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement and California Employment Development Department, and helped develop compensation policies and measures to reduce potential exposure.

Jessica is also an authority in generational workplace issues and frequently speaks on employment engagement in a multi-generational workforce.

Related Areas

Employment Law & Litigation