Julia C. Riechert

Partner

Silicon Valley

JRiechert@orrick.com

Read full biography at www.orrick.com
Julia Riechert loves to win and help companies in all things employment. She is an employment partner in Silicon Valley.

Julia 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, Airbnb, Instacart, Visa, Cisco, TaskRabbit, Beyond Meat, Unity Technologies, Williams-Sonoma, Inc., Dropbox and Gensler. 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.

Posts by: Julia Riechert

Making a List and Checking It Twice – Key Employment Considerations For The New Year

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You may be asking yourself: How is it already almost 2019?! With the New Year fast approaching, for those employment law enthusiasts out there, here are some legal issues that you want to keep in mind as you look back on 2018 and forward to 2019:

1. Compensation

Year-End Bonuses: Employers distributing holiday bonuses, holiday gift cards, year-end merit bonuses, and other types of compensation to nonexempt employees should consider whether the compensation must be included in a nonexempt employee’s “regular rate” of pay when calculating overtime. The Code of Federal Regulations carves out some specific types of pay that need not be included in an employee’s regular rate of pay. For example, Section 778.211 excludes purely discretionary bonuses and section 778.212 excludes gifts for Christmas and other special occasions.  So, an employer giving employees gift cards for the holidays or other special occasions is not required to incorporate the value of those gift cards into an employee’s regular rate of pay as long as the amounts “are not measured by or dependent on hours worked, production, or efficiency.” See 29 C.F.R. § 778.212(a); 29 U.S.C.A. § 207.

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Third Time’s a Charm? The Republican Majority NLRB Is Re-Examining Section 7 and Company Email

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With a new Republican majority in the NLRB, the rules may be changing (again) when it comes to company emails. The NLRB is in the process of re-analyzing when and how employers can restrict employees’ company email use without running afoul of NLRA Section 7, and may begin upholding employer policies with facially neutral restrictions on company email and computer usage again in the near future.

A bit of background: Section 7 of the NLRA protects an employee’s right to engage in “concerted activities,” which occurs “when two or more employees take action for their mutual aid or protection regarding terms and conditions of employment.” The NLRA’s protection of “concerted activities” is a broader concept than “union activities” and covers many different activities, including employee discussions about pay, work conditions, and safety concerns. The NLRB has construed the terms “concerted” and “protected” very broadly and vaguely, to include any activity aimed at affecting employee interests.

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Some Control Is Just Fine: Ninth Circuit Upholds Independent Contractor Status in Jones v. Royal Admin. Servs.

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Just the other week, in Jones v. Royal Admin. Servs., the Ninth Circuit reaffirmed the federal common law standard for distinguishing agents from independent contractors and upheld the independent contractor status of telemarketers providing direct sales services for a company, Royal Administration Services, Inc. (“Royal”).

At issue were telemarketers employed by All American Auto Protection, Inc. (“AAAP”), one of about twenty marketing vendors used by Royal to sell vehicle service contracts.  Several recipients of these telemarketing calls filed suit, first against AAAP and then against Royal, alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”).  The telemarketing call recipients alleged that Royal was vicariously liable because the AAAP telemarketers were Royal’s agents.  Royal filed for summary judgment, asserting that the AAAP telemarketers were not its agents, but rather independent contractors.  The district court granted summary judgment for Royal. READ MORE →

California: Making Arbitration Great Again

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California’s resistance to the longstanding federal policy favoring arbitration frequently results in public expressions of frustration by the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.  In over five years since the Supreme Court’s broad directives in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U.S. 333 (2011), recent California decisions, including our recent coverage of the California Supreme Court’s holding in Sandquist v. Lebo, Case No. S220812, 2016 WL 4045008 (Cal. July 28, 2016), suggest that the state’s stubbornness may be waning, at least for the time being.  The following summarizes key decisions that diverge from California’s traditional resistance to arbitration and which every employer should have in their arsenal of tools.

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Big Bucks for Baby-Bonding: San Francisco Passes Employer-Paid Parental Leave Ordinance

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Staying true to form, earlier this month San Francisco passed the nation’s first fully-paid parental leave law known as the Paid Parental Leave for Bonding with New Child Ordinance (“Paid Parental Leave Ordinance”).  California’s Paid Family Leave (“PFL”) program currently provides six weeks of partially-paid leave at 55 percent of an employee’s pay, up to $1,129 per week.  The Paid Parental Leave Ordinance mandates that employers pay the difference up to a weekly maximum, meaning most employees will receive six weeks of bonding leave at full pay.  Unlike PFL, which is funded through employee contributions to state disability insurance, benefits under the Paid Parental Leave Ordinance are employer-funded.

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Pennsylvania Plaintiffs Launch Successful Attack on Pittsburgh’s Local Paid Sick Leave

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The proliferation of paid sick leave (PSL) laws has been well-documented in the last few years.  California’s PSL statute has received particular attention in this blog, but Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Oregon have also adopted similar state-wide legislation.  And it is not just the states that are rolling out requirements for PSL; dozens of cities and counties have also adopted PSL ordinances (oftentimes in states that already have similar laws in place).  Major municipal adopters include New York City, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Newark, and Philadelphia.

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Legislative Updates Employers Should Know About to Avoid Wringing in the New Year

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The California legislature played an active role in 2015 by enacting new rules and amendments in many employment areas.  The following covers some of the key highlights, some of which became effective on January 1, 2016.

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Swinging for the Fences: Minor Leaguers Continue Suit Alleging They Were Paid Peanuts By The MLB

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Baseball season is well underway as fans fill themselves up on hot dogs and beers, don their rally caps for some late-inning luck, and cheer for their favorite players. Meanwhile, a class action against Major League Baseball by former minor league players has been trotting through federal court. In Senne v. MLB, No. 3:14-cv-00608-JCS (N.D. Cal. Feb. 7, 2014), ECF No. 1, the plaintiffs cry foul in alleging that “paying their dues” on the way to the big leagues isn’t paying the bills. Specifically, the plaintiffs allege that MLB and all 30 of its teams have violated the FLSA by not paying the minor leaguers overtime and minimum wage.

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Are Your California Leave Policies Up to Date? New California Family Rights Act Regulations Take Effect July 1, 2015

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The California Fair Employment and Housing Council recently issued new California Family Rights Act (“CFRA”) regulations that take effect July 1, 2015. The new revisions are intended to clarify confusing rules and align the regulations more closely with the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) regulations (where the statutes are consistent), though differences still remain between CFRA and FMLA.

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Can Anyone Stop Them? NLRB’s New “Quickie” Union Election Rules Set To Take Effect April 14.

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On December 12, 2014 the NLRB adopted new union election rules, claiming that they will “modernize and streamline the process for resolving representation disputes.”  These rules will become effective April 14th of this year.

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