Practice Areas
While the bulk of our time is spent defending employers against litigation, Munger, Tolles & Olson counsels clients to develop sound policies and procedures that avoid potential liabilities and comply with California's complex and, at times, surprising employment laws and decisions.
MTO represents employers in a wide range of labor and employment matters. Our litigators have significant experience handling individual and class action suits involving allegations of wage and hour violations, discrimination, wrongful termination, harassment, and retaliation. We also regularly handle trade secret and unfair competition suits as well as collective bargaining negotiations and arbitrations. Our employment practice serves a wide range of companies and currently has a particular emphasis on the financial services, entertainment, utilities, telecommunications and retail sectors.
Clients often engage us to handle high-profile or precedent-setting disputes, including those that challenge fundamental aspects of their business model. For example, representing the Board of Directors of Earl Scheib in Reynolds v. Bement, MTO obtained a precedent-setting California Supreme Court decision that corporate officers and directors may not be held personally liable for wage claims by corporate employees. For Merrill Lynch, we obtained a judgment dismissing a financial advisor’s fraud claims in connection with compensation policy changes at the firm’s Swiss Bank affiliate. Representing Warner Home Video, MTO secured the dismissal of fraud claims by an individual alleging he was owed a multi-million bonus for his role in developing the DVD format. For a major airline, we obtained dismissals in a series of cases challenging drug testing policies and results.
