Reed Smith announced that the Daily Journal named partners Michele Haydel Gehrke and Mara Curtis among its Top Labor & Employment Lawyers in California for 2024.
San Francisco-based Gehrke has appeared on the Daily Journal’s prestigious list for the past seven consecutive years, and Los Angeles-based Curtis for the past two.
Michele Haydel Gehrke
In its featured profile of Gehrke, the Daily Journal highlighted her longstanding “track record of representing multi-billion dollar transnational clients in complex labor and employment disputes as lead counsel,” including filing the first-ever petition in the video game industry before the National Labor Relations Board.
“I love the interesting factual and legal issues labor and employment law represents, as well as the human-interest element of the practice,” Gehrke said in her profile.
Gehrke’s “groundbreaking” success in “pivotal” employment disputes in the airline industry also was highlighted, including winning summary judgment in three cases, and the dismissal of another under the Railway Labor Act preemption.
“The California case involved 11 plaintiffs and 36 defendants,” requiring “extensive, coordinated case management,” Gehrke said. “Our aggressive pleading challenges enabled us to get all of the individual defendants dismissed from the case.” Gehrke’s team also significantly narrowed the claims and achieved a fee award in the client’s favor after a successful anti-SLAPP motion.
Mara Curtis
In its featured profile of Curtis, the Daily Journal highlighted her 15 years of experience solving complex issues in high-stakes wage-and-hour class, collective and representative litigation, often for clients in health care, retail, transportation and the gig economy. Curtis also was highlighted for helping employers navigate recent reforms to the Private Attorneys General Act.
Curtis told the Daily Journal that her mentor taught her to “always be thinking three steps ahead of the issues,” the goal being to “know the answer to each issue that might come up in litigation or counseling before the question was asked.”
Cases highlighted included Mara’s recent success defending a leading grocer against novel claims that customers using self-checkout were employees.
“This victory was particularly impactful for California businesses, providing a precedent for the use of technology in customer interactions and offering a framework to counter similar claims,” Curtis said.
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