Employment Group Of The Year: Orrick
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Employment Group Of The Year: Orrick By Aaron Vehling Law360, New York (January 22, 2016, 4:58 PM ET) -- Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP continued to establish itself as a leader in the employment sector last year by helping guide clients like Kleiner Perkins to decisive court victories in the much-watched Pao gender bias suit and helping Sephora defeat a wageand-hour class action, making it one of Law360's Employment Groups of the Year.
The firm’s 55-attorney employment group shepherded investment firm Kleiner Perkins to victory in a lawsuit filed by Ellen Pao, who accused her former employer of denying her advancement opportunities because she is a woman in a case that went to jury trial and eventually settled after a brief run in the appeals court. The employment team has also been instrumental in helping defeat class actions that purported to represent members deemed not similar enough to be part of the same class, in the case involving specialists at makeup retailer Sephora USA Inc. Employment group chair Mike Delikat, a partner in the firm’s New York office, says that a distinguishing feature of the practice group — spread across 11 offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia — is the fact it achieves great results for clients with a relatively small team. “We’re certainly not the largest of employment law group practices compared to others selected in this category," he said, but a “distinguishing factor” for the firm is the “results we achieve and the clients represent — and the consistent quality of our bench and the fact that we have become the go-to practice for the more complex and more important labor and employment law issues for companies.”
Delikat and his team have leveraged their reputation into new growth in Washington, D.C., where they recently added Chris Wilkinson, a former U.S. Department of Labor associate solicitor for civil rights and labor management. His extensive experience with regulatory issues represents a notable victory for Orrick’s employment team, because “it adds a piece we didn’t have before, in terms of someone who had been a regulator,” Delikat says. “He’s been at the front and center for a lot of issues big employers have.” Last year’s biggest case for the firm was Pao’s $100 million gender-bias suit against Kleiner Perkins, which attracted not only legal media attention, but also the attention of general-interest news outlets and blogs. Delikat has been an employment lawyer since the mid-1970s and said he has never seen anything like it. “Because of the industry involved, the issue involved and because of the challenge of the case, I’d say over all of those years no employment law trial has garnered as much interest,” he said. Pao sued Kleiner Perkins, her former employer, in 2012 in California state court, alleging that she was denied advancement opportunities because she spurned sexual advances from a partner at the firm and later complained. In March, a 12-person jury found that gender wasn’t a factor in Kleiner Perkins’ decision not to promote Pao, nor did Pao’s internal discussions or complaints keep her from moving up the ladder. The post-trial proceedings were dominated with a fees fight and by September Pao had withdrawn her suit, saying her case showed how difficult it is to address bias through the court system and that she was paying Kleiner Perkins’ legal costs. But to Jessica Perry, an Orrick partner who was part of the trial team for the case, the outcome showed that the jury was on the right side of the equation. “It became evident to the jury that the emails and witnesses who testified didn’t support the allegations that Ellen Pao was making,” Perry said. Among the evidence against Pao were a series of annual performance reviews showing the same criticisms of her performance, indicating a lack of improvement. “She said she knew they had been there, but didn't believe she needed to address them,” Perry said. That the case went to trial at all is unusual, she said. “Often times we see cases like that, with such salacious allegations and such large damages demands for an employment case, settle,” Perry said. “[But] we were prepared to take the case to trial to prove the allegations didn’t have anything to back them up…” In the wage-and-hour arena, in February Orrick’s employment team secured a win for Sephora by successfully convincing the appeals court to find that the employees who were supposed to be part of a single class of workers actually handled their time differently. Therefore, the court found, they didn’t have enough in common with each other to be a part of the same class.
“Many of the big employers and multiple-store retailers come to us because again and again we’ve had such great results in those areas,” Delikat said. --Editing by Emily Kokoll. All Content © 2003-2016, Portfolio Media, Inc.
Employment Group Of The Year: Orrick By Aaron Vehling Law360, New York (January 22, 2016, 4:58 PM ET) -- Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP continued to establish itself as a leader in the employment sector last year by helping guide clients like Kleiner Perkins to decisive court victories in the much-watched Pao gender bias suit and helping Sephora defeat a wageand-hour class action, making it one of Law360's Employment Groups of the Year.
The firm’s 55-attorney employment group shepherded investment firm Kleiner Perkins to victory in a lawsuit filed by Ellen Pao, who accused her former employer of denying her advancement opportunities because she is a woman in a case that went to jury trial and eventually settled after a brief run in the appeals court. The employment team has also been instrumental in helping defeat class actions that purported to represent members deemed not similar enough to be part of the same class, in the case involving specialists at makeup retailer Sephora USA Inc. Employment group chair Mike Delikat, a partner in the firm’s New York office, says that a distinguishing feature of the practice group — spread across 11 offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia — is the fact it achieves great results for clients with a relatively small team. “We’re certainly not the largest of employment law group practices compared to others selected in this category," he said, but a “distinguishing factor” for the firm is the “results we achieve and the clients represent — and the consistent quality of our bench and the fact that we have become the go-to practice for the more complex and more important labor and employment law issues for companies.”
Delikat and his team have leveraged their reputation into new growth in Washington, D.C., where they recently added Chris Wilkinson, a former U.S. Department of Labor associate solicitor for civil rights and labor management. His extensive experience with regulatory issues represents a notable victory for Orrick’s employment team, because “it adds a piece we didn’t have before, in terms of someone who had been a regulator,” Delikat says. “He’s been at the front and center for a lot of issues big employers have.” Last year’s biggest case for the firm was Pao’s $100 million gender-bias suit against Kleiner Perkins, which attracted not only legal media attention, but also the attention of general-interest news outlets and blogs. Delikat has been an employment lawyer since the mid-1970s and said he has never seen anything like it. “Because of the industry involved, the issue involved and because of the challenge of the case, I’d say over all of those years no employment law trial has garnered as much interest,” he said. Pao sued Kleiner Perkins, her former employer, in 2012 in California state court, alleging that she was denied advancement opportunities because she spurned sexual advances from a partner at the firm and later complained. In March, a 12-person jury found that gender wasn’t a factor in Kleiner Perkins’ decision not to promote Pao, nor did Pao’s internal discussions or complaints keep her from moving up the ladder. The post-trial proceedings were dominated with a fees fight and by September Pao had withdrawn her suit, saying her case showed how difficult it is to address bias through the court system and that she was paying Kleiner Perkins’ legal costs. But to Jessica Perry, an Orrick partner who was part of the trial team for the case, the outcome showed that the jury was on the right side of the equation. “It became evident to the jury that the emails and witnesses who testified didn’t support the allegations that Ellen Pao was making,” Perry said. Among the evidence against Pao were a series of annual performance reviews showing the same criticisms of her performance, indicating a lack of improvement. “She said she knew they had been there, but didn't believe she needed to address them,” Perry said. That the case went to trial at all is unusual, she said. “Often times we see cases like that, with such salacious allegations and such large damages demands for an employment case, settle,” Perry said. “[But] we were prepared to take the case to trial to prove the allegations didn’t have anything to back them up…” In the wage-and-hour arena, in February Orrick’s employment team secured a win for Sephora by successfully convincing the appeals court to find that the employees who were supposed to be part of a single class of workers actually handled their time differently. Therefore, the court found, they didn’t have enough in common with each other to be a part of the same class.
“Many of the big employers and multiple-store retailers come to us because again and again we’ve had such great results in those areas,” Delikat said. --Editing by Emily Kokoll. All Content © 2003-2016, Portfolio Media, Inc.
