Overview
Kieran Hartley represents private employers in a broad spectrum of California labor and employment issues. His practice focuses predominantly on employer defense against wage and hour claims. Mr. Hartley has extensive litigation experience in class action defense as well as representative claims under the California Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA). As part of his practice, Mr. Hartley counsels and assists employers on managing class and PAGA litigation risks through the use of arbitration agreements, best practices, and other tools to minimize or disaggregate exposure. Mr. Hartley’s additional experience includes traditional labor law and prevailing wage obligations. He practices at every stage of the litigation process, including risk assessment, complex motion practice, mediation, and arbitrations and trials.
Mr. Hartley has led the defense in numerous mediations, where his expertise in computational analysis resulted in highly favorable settlements. Mr. Hartley’s frequent successes in motion practice include the use of arbitration agreements, resulting in many court orders limiting class exposure and restricting employee claims to individual arbitration as well as victories at the appellate level. As an avid writer, Mr. Hartley has prepared amicus briefs to the California Supreme Court on novel issues of first impression on behalf of industry associations.
Mr. Hartley’s clients have included, among others, multi-million and multi-billion dollar enterprises in staffing, retail, construction, manufacturing, and other industries. Mr. Hartley is a former federal law clerk and previously practiced at an international law firm, where he primarily defended institutional organizations in class and PAGA litigation.