December.07.2020
Law360 featured Orrick as a 2020 Practice Group of the Year in employment, noting that our team “scooped up big wins” for tech industry giants such as Oracle, Microsoft, Twitter and GitHub. It is the fifth time our employment group has been recognized as a Law360 Practice Group of the Year.
In this profile of the practice group’s string of success over the past year, the publication specifically cited major defense wins in gender and pay bias litigation that exposed our clients to billions of dollars in damages claims. These included securing a high-profile decision for Oracle from a judge who rejected the U.S. Department of Labor’s sweeping allegations of discrimination in pay and promotion practices; rulings for Microsoft and Twitter rejecting efforts to certify nationwide class action gender bias cases; and the dismissal of a race and gender discrimination case against GitHub brought by one of its top former in-house lawyers.
Partners Julie Totten (head of Orrick’s global employment practice), Jessica Perry (global head of litigation and the firm’s managing partner for sector and practice alignment) and Erin Connell (lead counsel for Oracle in the DOL case) spoke to the publication for the story.
"One of the things about the practice that is so interesting and challenging is how fast tech innovates," Jessica told Law360. "We often deal with issues where the law hasn't quite kept up yet, so being pragmatic about how can you find the best business solution … where the regulations or the legal framework hasn't yet caught up to where business is, that's a really interesting aspect of what we do."
Read the full story: Employment Group Of The Year: Orrick