2 | Fighting for Workers' Rights

It’s no secret that companies are stealing from their workers. Wage theft is rampant in America, but plaintiffs’ attorneys like Shannon Liss-Riordan are fighting back. Shannon is one of the country’s top lawyers bringing employment class actions, and in today’s episode, she and Spencer discuss Shannon’s cases against companies like Uber and FedEx. Later, Boston College law student Marissa Lambert joins Spencer to unpack President Trump’s attacks on America’s law firms.

To learn more about upcoming plaintiffs’ law fellowship opportunities at Shannon’s firm, visit www.llrlaw.com or email: fellowship@llrlaw.com.

Sign the amicus brief opposing President Trump’s attacks on America’s law firms.

Suggestions for topics? Questions for our guests? Email the show at Spencer@CauseOfActionPodcast.com.

Learn more about plaintiffs’ law from the National Plaintiffs’ Law Association. Additional details on the NPLA’s Linktree. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

A Walk-Up Melodia Kelly and Schoenberger podcast. I'm Spencer Palke, and this is Cause of Action. A show about how to build a thriving legal career and practice law that can change the world. Back when I was 17, I worked at the local pro shop, like on the golf course. And at the end of the day, when the golf clubs would come in, you'd always hope that you'd get to wash the clubs of one of the well-to-do folks, because you're thinking you might get a tip. Back then it was just a few bucks, but it meant something to me, and I thought that if I did the work, then I deserve the tip. But it doesn't always work that way. It's no secret that there are a lot of companies stealing a lot of money from a lot of workers. Wage theft is rampant in America, and it can appear in a lot of different ways. A manager might be stealing tips from waiters and waitresses at a restaurant. A company might not be paying overtime after employees clock 14 hours on the job. It might be stopping workers from taking lunch breaks or rest breaks. And then there's the massive problem with misclassification. Companies trying to label their workers as independent contractors, even though in every meaningful sense they're actually employees. It's a good deal for companies, but they don't have to guarantee things like overtime, or lunch breaks, or rest breaks. All of which is exacerbating one of the most corrosive problems in America. The rich, they're getting richer, and America's workers are getting poorer. It's no exaggeration to say that economic inequality is shaping the lives of millions of Americans and even changing the outcomes of national elections. But plaintiff's attorneys like my guest today, Shannon Liz Reardon, are fighting back against the status quo. Shannon is widely recognized as one of the country's top lawyers bringing employment class actions. She's gone head-to-head with companies like Uber, FedEx, and Starbucks, just to name a few. She's even been profiled in Vanity Fair for what she's called billionaire justice. Shannon is an incredible lawyer. And in our conversation, we're going to talk about how she's taking on major corporations, and in the process, has won victories for America's workers. We're also going to talk about how law students can begin taking steps now to forge a meaningful career fighting for social justice. Afterward, I'll be joined, as always, by Marissa Lambert, a 2-L at Boston College Law School. We'll reflect on Shannon's journey in employment law and talk about the ongoing saga with President Trump's attacks on America's law firms. That's all coming up. Shannon Liz Reardon is a preeminent labor attorney based in Boston. She's a founding partner of Lichton and Liz Rearden and a graduate of Harvard Law School. In her three decade-long career, Shannon has represented employees in class actions against Uber, Starbucks, American Airlines, Twitter, and many more companies, resulting not only in resolutions totaling well into the nine figures, but also crucial policy changes that have protected and enhanced worker rights. In 2024, she was named one of America's top 200 lawyers of all types by Forbes magazine and has been called the reigning plaintiff's champion by best lawyers in America. Shannon Lis Reardon, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

So you've built this truly incredible career holding large corporations accountable for how they exploit their workers. We're talking public companies that are making massive profits, and you've gotten them to pay significant sums for their misdeeds. Now I want to begin by asking about one group of cases that drew you deep into labor law early in your career. You've got this great story from a TED talk you gave that starts out when you get a call from a waiter about his tips. I'm wondering if you can take it from there.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

Yeah, I was a pretty new associate at my firm, and I got a call from a waiter who told me that his manager was taking a portion of his tips, and he had done some legal research, and he thought, isn't that illegal? I heard what he had to say, and I said, Oh, that's interesting. Let me let me look into this. I'll look at this law you're talking about. And there was this law that had been on the books in Massachusetts since 1952. It was written in kind of arcane, archaic language. It wasn't quite clear what it meant exactly, but I looked at it and I said to myself, I think this means that managers can't take tips. Tips are for workers, but there was no case law on it. So I agreed to take this guy's case. And I my partner, Harold Lichton, I remember he took one look at this law and he said, Oh, you'd think that's what that law means, but you just wait till those courts get their hands on this. That is not what that law is going to mean. I was like, I don't know. I really, I think that's what it means. I think that's what they were getting at in 1952. Word got out that I had taken on this case, and then I got a call from another waiter and another waiter and another waiter, and before I knew it, I was representing wait staff across Boston and across Massachusetts. So I ended up actually spending a number of years focused on TIPS cases. And Harold was right at first. It didn't go very well. The courts had never seen a case like this. It wasn't at all established what that archaic language meant. And I lost my first case. So I kept going, I kept going. I lost the first case, I lost the second case. Was so furious about it because I was just so sure the judges were wrong that I just marched right up to Massachusetts highest court, the Supreme Judicial Court with an appeal. And the argument just goes horribly. It's just the judges just don't get it. They're just like, we can tip whoever we want. Who are you to who are these waiters that think that they deserve the tips? Anyway, so after that, I followed Harold's advice. He always said, you know, don't go straight to the mainland, you know, start with the smaller islands, you know, before you go to the mainland, but you know, build your way up case by case. So I did the most strategically smart move I made in my entire career then. I called up the defense counsel on this case that I just argued in this stunning, horrible argument for the SJC, and I settled the case. So I took it away from the justices. Um and then the next case at the Superior Court, I won. I got a judge to understand what I was saying. And then the next case, I won. And then the next case, and the next case, and the next case. And then before I knew it, you know, several years went by and I looked back and I realized, wow, without ever going to the Supreme Court, I established the law in this area. And anyway, that was an incredible lesson, both in persistence and in not taking it all on at once, but also in just seeing the power of a lawyer to shape the law, making the law into something that I think it was originally designed to do, which is help people, help working people. I've been so honored and privileged to be able to spend my career fighting to do that.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

The persistence part I wanted to get at, which is you know, you you lose a couple times at Out of the Gates, your law partner is saying, I don't know. The jury the Supreme Judicial Court is saying, we really don't think so. How do you what was the what was the spark that kept you saying, no, I think I'm right. I'm I'm not gonna shift gears, I'm not gonna change practice areas, I'm not gonna give up on this law.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Harold and I have this little saying that we like that that is kind of one of the mottos that keeps our firm going, which is when most other people would think things are not looking good, we like to say, we've got them right where we want. So, you know, we've just you know, I whenever a case isn't going well at the trial court, I say, this is gonna be such a great appeal. Um, you know, because the worse the decision that you get, the easier it is to get overturned. So we like to take challenging circumstances and use them to our advantage and our fight for working people.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Well, I am curious, I mean, because certainly wage theft has been a major focus of your work through the years. How how big of a problem was that and is that now across industries?

SPEAKER_02 8:33

It's it's just so massive. And I have to say that, you know, I didn't even really know about this area of law when I was in law school, um, or even after I graduated from law school. And I remember early on in my career, I went to a conference, and it was a conference on the minimum wage, enforcing the minimum wage. And I thought, there's a whole conference on that? I mean, obviously employers pay the minimum wage, right? I mean, you know, but my eyes were just so open at this conference. I was like, oh my God, there are incredible swathes of our economy where employers are saving money by getting away with not paying workers minimum wage. And that was just sort of the tip of the iceberg when I realized this is just massive. But I think the biggest issues, and this really has been my focus and our firm's focus for really the last two decades or more, is employers who try to not just skirt the law on what's compensable time, or did I calculate the overtime rate correctly, or you know, do I really owe this amount for insurance, whatever. The issue is employers who just try to take themselves out of those battles altogether by denying that their workers are their employees. So the main way we see that is through independent contractor misclassification. Employers who just say, no, we can just opt out of this whole system because our workers aren't even our employees. So that's why independent contractor misclassification is so widespread. It is such a huge problem, and there has been no end to the work that needs to be done to fighting it.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Aaron Powell And you've done a huge amount of that work for many years, and I want to get to that. But what I really want to do before we get there is talk about how you got into this really in the first place. Because just hearing you talk about it, you know, when things are really difficult and you've lost here and it's trial's not going well, the type of person who says, well, what's a it's gonna be a good appeal is somebody who believes in this stuff. It's a mission, right? This is not just sort of a casual interest. So let's go back and I want to hear how you became a plaintiff's attorney. And I'm curious if when you entered Harvard Law, did you have a sense of the type of law you wanted to practice? And bonus compound question, did you have any idea it would be plaintiff's labor law?

SPEAKER_02 10:46

I knew that I was going to law school to fight for social justice. That's just where I was coming from. After college, I thought I was going to be a women's rights advocate. I didn't even really know what a plaintiff's lawyer was. So I just knew that I wanted to fight for social justice and I had to focus on women's issues. So my first real job out of college, I knew I wanted to go to New York and work in the women's movement. I had no idea how to do that, but I got my hands, this was before the age of the internet. I got my hands on this little blue directory that was put out by this group, Women in Politics or something, that listed every women's organization in New York. I just went through this little book and I called every number. I just called everyone, said, Hey, I just graduated from college. Do you need any help? Um, and somehow I landed a job with Bella Abzug, who I didn't know who that was at the time, but I told my mom, she was like, You're working for Bella Abzug? Um, she had been this really fiery, prominent leader in the women's movement, this very prominent congresswoman, and she was running another nonprofit organization she had started, which with a focus on women and environmental issues and getting women involved in policymaking. And in working out of her office in New York, there were all these photos around the office of Bella in her prior life as a labor lawyer. Um, so there were pictures of her on union picket lines, giving fiery speeches at labor rallies, and you know, I got to know her pretty well during that time and learned about this amazing work that she had done as a labor lawyer, and that just seemed really cool. It was just a way to actually use the law to help people, and it that influenced me. And it was during that time that I made the decision to go to law school and realized that law was something that could be a way to really make an impact on people's lives.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

So, Shannon, you came to law school knowing that you cared about feminism and workers' rights, those kinds of crucial issues, and and eventually gets channeled into plaintiff side practice. How did it narrow onto this thing, this path?

SPEAKER_02 13:02

It wasn't really something that was widely advertised or even talked about at the public interest office at Harvard. There were little binders that they had with job postings and information on organizations that did civil rights work and related issues, and then I saw listings of a few civil rights plaintiffs' firms, and I remember thinking, oh, that's kind of cool. And then also before law school, there was this conference that was put on by all these New York women's organizations in the spring of 1992 on sexual harassment. And I got hired to organize this conference, and I met all these amazing women doing all these different things. And um, one of the ones who I worked with uh particularly closely in organizing the conference was a plaintiff's side employment lawyer, and she focused on discrimination. Talked to her and asked her questions about what she did, and she brought sexual harassment cases, she brought sex discrimination cases. I thought that's that's pretty cool. You can do that as a private lawyer. And one thing that I had a lot of experience at that point in the nonprofit world, which was incredibly gratifying in some ways, but was also a little frustrating in other ways because there was always a lack of funds, there was always, you know, a little infighting among organizations, turf wars, uh, you know, that just sort of happens kind of generally. But then I just realized there's this whole world of being a plaintiff's lawyer where you don't have to ask anyone permission. You don't have to go to a board or get your funding approved. You just someone walks into your office and they say, I think I was discriminated against, and you're like, okay, I'll take that case.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Love that. Well, what can you tell us about your journey from law school, once you made the decision to go, to landing that first job at a law firm, obviously a major point of anxiety for students then and now. And so, how'd you end up at that first firm? It was pile room, uh, Licton, and Ehrenberg, I believe.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

Okay, so I've got a fun story about this. I'll try to keep it brief. After law school, I did a federal court clerkship for a couple of years with an amazing judge, Nancy Atlas, in the Southern District of Texas. And then my plan was my husband, well, my about-to-be husband and I decided we were gonna go back to Boston because we just loved Boston. We had met in college. I had heard too many stories of people who had like found their first job and it wasn't quite right, and then they're kind of stuck there for a while, and I just didn't want that to happen. So I decided I wanted to go to Boston, get the lay of the land, get to know the legal community, and then be able to make an informed decision about where I want to be, if I want to keep working on my own or find others to, you know, join forces with. So this was my plan. Um, so my husband and I got married right after my clerkship, and then we went on this long honeymoon to Asia. Um, I was lying on a beach in Thailand when I get this email, and this everyone today would be like, Oh, yeah, of course you're lying on the beach and get an email. At the time, there was no, you know, we had no phones. We trekked into town every day to check out the internet cafe, and that's how I checked my email. But so a lawyer who I had done some work for while I was in law school, she emailed me and said, Shannon, I know your plan is just to do it on your own, but there's this firm that is hiring an associate, and there's this lawyer there, his name is Harold Lichton. I just think the two of you would hit it off. Why don't you call them? I just think you should talk to them. And I was like, Okay, sure. Yeah, all right. So I get in touch with them, I apply for this job, and then we set up an interview at 9 a.m. Boston time, 9 p.m. Thai time, Thailand time, and then I realized that there's no phone on the island that I'm on, so I gotta take a boat to another island to be able to make it to the interview. And then we try to get on a boat, but there's this huge storm brewing. But I'm like, I've got this interview, I gotta get on the boat. So we get on this boat, you know, the waves are swelling and the boat is going back and forth, and I'm just terrified that I'm not gonna make it to the next island. And there's this storm and it's raining and storming and lightning. We get to the island only to find that the power is out everywhere because of the storm. And my interview, meanwhile, is in half an hour. There's no phone, no working phones anywhere. I go to this like fancy hotel, and I'm like just desperate. How am I gonna get a phone to do this interview? They're gonna think I'm not committed or something. And then I notice like outside this hotel, there are these women who are in these little huts with generators, and they each, I learned, have a phone inside. So you can go and you can pay them some coins and do a phone call off of a generator. So I go and I find this hut and I give this woman some coins, and she brings candlelight to me so I can see the numbers to dial on the phone, and I have my little notes scribbled out. Anyway, so I get there, and this is how I do my interview.

unknown 18:01

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

And that's just the first thing I say to them, I said, You don't know me, but if you had any idea what I did to get to this interview, you would just hire me right now.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Did you really say that?

SPEAKER_02 18:09

You did say that. So, anyway, despite my best intentions, um, you know, they offered me a job right away. I took it right away. So I didn't see it, just because I had a gut feeling that it was a good idea, and I did a little due diligence. I managed to make a couple of phone calls and I heard how fabulous Harold Lichton was, and I just was like, okay, I'm gonna try this. And then I started the day I got back from my honeymoon. So that's how I that's how I got this job.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Wow, just the so the typical path then, pretty standard.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

Typical path, and and Harold Lichton and I have now been working together for close to 30 years.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

So you get into plaintiff's practice, and what's what's it look like out of the gates? What's the what what kind of work do you get to do in your first year or two?

SPEAKER_02 18:52

Well, this is where plaintiff's work and defense work really diverges from the beginning in what you get to do. Typically, plaintiff's firms are smaller, and you are able to take on whatever you feel capable of or even not capable of. They're just gonna throw you out there and you can do it, and you learn by doing. You know, in my first year as an associate, I was defending depositions, I was taking depositions, I was writing briefs, I was writing appellate briefs, I was doing cases soup to nuts, just right out of the gate. Um, and then so it's so ironic, I think, that some of the common wisdom among law students or recent law graduates is that you have to go to a defense firm to get training. The best training there is is to be doing it. And that's what you can do at a plaintiff's firm. At a defense firm, you know, for the first four years, you're maybe carrying a partner's briefcase. You're third seating a deposition, you're certainly not arguing in court. Um, the best training you can get is at a plaintiff's firm.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Now we teased this a little bit earlier. I mean, one of the major through lines in your career has been fighting for workers that companies misclassify as independent contractors holding up the air quotes here. Now, those, of course, are super rich companies, and they then use that misclassification as something of a hall pass that lets them pay less and of course offer fewer benefits and protections for their workers. You started this fight well over a decade ago, and one of your cases, O'Connor versus Uber, lasted many years. Can you give us a thumbnail sketch of that case?

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Interestingly enough, a lot of it did sort of start with the tips issue, which was my bread and butter, and I knew a lot about tips and how tips worked. And it started with the issue that a lot of drivers had was that when Uber first started, they said, This is the seamless process, you know, you just pay with a credit card that's already in there. And you know, there's no need to tip because the tip is already included. And I was talking to these drivers, I was like, Do you get a tip? They're like, No, we don't get a tip. Well, what do they mean the tip is included? They were just saying that there is no tip. So that was the genesis of the case, is that the company was advertising that drivers were getting a tip, which reasonable customers would understand to be something above and beyond just the base pay, but there was no tip. And then I was drafting, I'm I'm gonna say this now. I think this is the first time I've said this publicly, but I'll just say it now.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

All right.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

I was drafting the complaint, and it was a TIPS case. And I'm like looking at the complaint, and I'm like, you know, maybe I should put in a claim that they're misclassified as independent contractors. I don't know. Maybe it's maybe that's a little out there. Maybe for the TIPS claim I need to show their employees, but maybe not. But I don't know. So I was talking with my original lead plaintiff, and I was like, what do you what do you think? Should we just throw in independent contract misclassification and see what happens? Wow. And he was like, I leave it to you, Shannon. If you think that's a good idea, let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Wow. So it was an outgrowth of the TIPS litigation. And you're like, wait a minute, maybe we also do this.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

Yeah, yeah. And then little did I know that I was starting the next chapter of my life.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Oh my gosh. The ability to have creativity too and have that be a crucial part of the skill set. I love that. So speaking of creativity or perhaps the lack thereof on the part of these companies, Uber is one of many gig economy companies that has tried to pull this same trick. Give us a sense of the other companies you've you've litigated this issue against.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

Oh, God, the list goes on and on and on. But the earliest independent contract myth classification cases I did was originally against FedEx. You know, it's the FedEx scam, really, that predated the gig economy. I mean, in some ways, Uber copied FedEx. You know, that at the time, I think you told somebody that that FedEx ground delivery driver who's delivering the package to your door, who shows up every day wearing a FedEx uniform and a truck with a FedEx logo, they're not FedEx's employee. They would be, what? So that was a long-standing fight. I filed my first case against FedEx a week before my daughter was born, and she's now almost legal to drink, and I'm still fighting FedEx. So 20 years. 20 plus years I've been going against this company. Um, so so there's been that whole battle. The other area that really, really just galled me to no end are these cleaning companies, these big international cleaning companies. They claim that the cleaning workers aren't employees, but they are independent business owners and they own franchises. They call them franchisees. So this has been another 20-plus year project of mine to rid the world of these so-called cleaning franchise companies who exploit immigrant workers by calling them franchisees and take away all of their rights. Long story short, I got it up to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court who agreed with me that the workers had been misclassified and they were actually employees, but they put into their decision this wonderful quote that we put in our brief. We were so excited that um was from Justice Brandeis from the early 1900s that to charge a man for a job goes against human dignity. And anyways, it's just really great. But that was that was the case that established that charging workers for jobs under the guise of being their own independent businesses is itself a violation of the public interest and is illegal. So we would take these victories that we got from Massachusetts, where we have really great laws, um, and expand them around the country, um, most notably to California, where I found a lot of hurdle area to uh to do these kinds of cases. But um, my goal that I did achieve at one point finally was I did rid Massachusetts of these companies as a result of litigation that I filed against a bunch of these so-called cleaning franchise companies. They stopped doing business in Cal in Massachusetts. They moved out of the state, and I was like, yay, that means that legitimate cleaning companies who classify the workers as employees will take their place because this work is not going to be offshore, it needs to be done. Um, there's that. There was strip clubs, we could have a whole podcast where I could talk about representing strippers. I had a client who we got a good result for, and she called me up years later and she said, you know, I just wanted to thank you for what you did and standing up for me and our coworkers when I didn't know that anyone cared about people like us. And, you know, because of what you did for me, I was able to get out of that job and I went back to school and I got my master's degree, and here's what I do now. Uh, you know, the list goes on and on and on. There's unfortunately so many industries that do this, and just the rise of the gig economy, and we've gone after all the gig companies now Uber Lyft, DoorDash, Grubhub, uh, you know, Instacart, uh, the list goes on and on and on. They just sparked this wave of other industries that are trying to save on costs by denying their workers basic legal protections.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

I love the example of the um the cleaning staff companies because as you point out, they're no longer in Massachusetts, the ones that are, you know, illegally misclassifying their employees. And yet the economy still operates in Massachusetts and there's still a hospitality industry, and hotels still want to exist there. Whoa, so strange.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

The sky hasn't fallen. You know, every time I hear a sky is falling argument, I can now tell the court with the experience of experience. You know what? I've heard that before and it hasn't happened.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

You know, I did want to close the loop on the Uber battle because it was it's such a prominent battle, but as as I researched it, you had a big win in the district court to get class certification and put Uber in a really difficult position they didn't expect to be in, where you're able to have what would have been a big settlement of$100 million to help people out. Then, of course, that's not approved by the court for various reasons. Settlement doesn't get approved, lo and behold, turned around on appeal, and it does resolve later. I guess my point being, these are difficult and righteous cases. They're not just righteous and they're not just difficult. It's both, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:08

Oh, yeah, no, absolutely. Many of these cases go on for years. We're not just nibbling around the edges, we're really going for the jugular, these are bet the company cases. You know, how are their business models going to proceed? And you better believe they put up big fights.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

I gotta ask one more question before I move on, which is you know, you've been in this battle for many years, and the nature of the battle has changed. The some of the defendants have changed, some of them have stayed the same. You've sued them repeatedly, but they are rich and they shape shift and they change the law, and they hire, you know, droves and droves of attorneys and all their associates. And the battle continues. How do you how do you on your side stay in your foxhole and keep keep going? I mean, how do you how do you do it?

SPEAKER_02 27:53

I mean, that's just it's I don't know, I guess it's just been my life's calling. It's just been my mission, and just the same way that a big a a big fight at the trial court gets me really reared up and ready to go for the appeal. Um is the same way that the bigger the challenge, just the more effort it takes to take it on. And I just um, you know, I thrive on that. I think that's what plaintiffs, lawyers, those who are really committed to this calling, do. And um, you know, I think a lot of law students are trying to figure out what area can they have an impact in and what will keep it exciting and interesting to make you want to get up every day and fight these battles. And I I think this area of law is is really one that that provides that.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Well, you mentioned law students, and I wanted to ask you about that. I mean, it's a time of great uncertainty for law students. Big law firms have hiring schedules that make students decide on a career before they take their first final as a one L. I don't know if you've heard about this. It's crazy. You know, of course, AI could dramatically alter what legal work is. I'm curious, what advice do you give uh these days when law students ask about how to navigate those challenges and others they might find on their way to hopefully having a fulfilling career?

SPEAKER_02 29:09

So, some of the things that I tell law students or would-be law students or recent law graduates who are asking questions like that that have helped me and guided me is to be open to opportunities, right? You know, planting those seeds, getting like what my third plan was when I first moved to Boston. I wanted to, you know, get the lay of the land and get to know people and then decide what I wanted to do. But then an unexpected opportunity came in my path, and I just went with my gut. And, you know, nearly 30 years later, I'm really glad I went with my gut. Uh because you just never know where those opportunities are gonna be. So I encourage people to get experience, meet people, be out there talking with people, learning what they do. And even if you have a certain path in mind, be open to other opportunities that come along the way because you just never know what's going to be the right one. So um, a little piece of advice that I've given my kids over the years, also, I feel like, is if you have a choice between doing something or not doing something, just do it. You know, because you just never know what's gonna be, you know, you never know where you're gonna meet your spouse or you know, where you're gonna find the perfect job or calling, or you know, who you might meet one day who may become one of your best friends. You know, so if you know, you could stay at home and scroll through your phone, or you know, someone asks you to go out and have a coffee, you just go out, just do it. Like, you know, obviously, I oh I told my kids, you know, as long as it's legal and safe, just just do the thing. So that's so that's my general advice.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

That's a that's great. There's this quote, uh, something effect of I I don't regret the things I did do, I only regret the things I didn't. Exactly. Totally. Excellent of a piece. So if listeners are inspired as I am by hearing about you and learning about what you've done, your kind of work, and the successes that you've had, um, and do you have a sense of or what's what's your recommendation for them when they're trying to get that first summer job or that first job out of law school? I mean, this is a question I talk to law students all over the country, and I've got my answers to the question, but I'm trying to improve them and add to them. They ask, I love what you're doing, it sounds great. How can I do it? Like, what's that first step?

SPEAKER_02 31:26

So here is the advice that I have to people, and this is advice that I got when I was, you know, on my honeymoon in Thailand and trying to figure out what I was gonna do when I got back. Um don't just wait for job postings. Yeah, obviously, people look at job postings, but look into who's out there, research what people are doing, and just call them up. Um, you know, just ask them to go have lunch. So many people will just really be unexpectedly generous with their time and will just talk to you. Um, and to be honest, I have really favored applicants who came to us when we didn't have a job posting up. Like I've always felt that some of the most driven potential associates are those who just sought us out and found us and said, you know, what you're doing is what I want to do. I don't know if you have any openings right now. I don't know if you need any help. Can I like work for you over the summer? Can I do that? And those are the people who I've really liked. And then also just through networking or just meeting people and going out there and you know, doing volunteer opportunities just so you get the lay of the land and find out who's out there doing what. In law school, doing clinical work and meeting practicing lawyers wherever you can just to hear about them and find out that is what I recommend. And then you get into a situation like I've been saying, where you're just around and you never know what's gonna pop up. You never know someone's gonna be like, oh, hey, by the way, someone's like, you know, like the lawyer who I did some work with when I was in law school who said to me, Hey Shannon, I know this is your plan, but go talk to Harold Licton, I think you'd like him. You know, that was just because I had a seed that was planted that I had no idea where it might sprout. So that is that is my big advice to lawyers, would be lawyers who are who are interested in doing plaintiff's work.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

Now, I I know you were you're quite invested and your firm's quite invested in discovering and training the next generation of of great plaintiff's attorneys. Tell us about those initiatives.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

Yeah, so I'm really excited about this. So the practice that we've done in recent years has really changed pretty fundamentally since the Supreme Court started allowing companies to get away with using arbitration agreements to block class actions, saying that people have to bring their cases one by one. I was actually standing in the room at a conference where I think I heard a defense lawyer announce to all the other defense lawyers standing around here's what you're gonna do, here's how you're gonna stop all those plaintiffs' lawyers from bringing class actions. You're gonna put an arbitration agreement in every agreement you ever do, and you'll you won't see any class actions anymore. So a number of years ago, we said, Oh, you know, you want to bring the case one by one? We'll show you one by one. Uh and so I started doing these cases where we would file hundreds and then later thousands of individual cases, and we're like, okay, there's one by one. You said you wanted to do one by one. And the first case, you know, we filed 200 individual arbitrations, 200 cases, and it just became so absurdly expensive for them. Um, you know, but what but what we showed them is there are plaintiffs' lawyers out there who are really um, you know, causing a lot of trouble for for these defendants by filing mass arbitrations now. But I think the defense lawyers start to get who actually does the cases and who sort of threatens a little bit. We do them, like we actually do these cases. We'll just start, you know, rolling up our sleeves one by one and doing these cases until the defendant cries mercy, and then they settle it on a class basis. On a class basis. They don't want us to be bringing any more individual arbitrations. So, anyway, so this brings me back to how the next generation of plaintiff's lawyers can really get experience in this field, and that is that we're starting a fellowship program this September.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 35:13

And we are hiring lawyers, new lawyers just out of law school, a little out of law school, later in careers, changing career paths, lawyers who want to do this work to build out our army further to do these mass arbitrations or even mass litigation in court. Um, and it's a twofold plan. One is to build out our army and do even more of these and actually do them, which scares the hell out of these defendants and defense lawyers, which is so fun to see. Um, but our goal is to help train the next generation of plaintiff's lawyers because these are so good for training ground. You have an arbitration, it's your own little case. A new lawyer can grab hold of it, have that client deal with the opposing counsel, get on on their feet advocacy practice in front of an arbitrator, which is a little less scary, a little more informal than court, but you still have to do all the trial prep stuff, writing the briefs. And so we're gonna have a fellowship program where our fellows will have a nice big caseload of these cases, a variety of cases, because we're rolling out a whole bunch of new of these mass arbitrations. But I'm excited to do what you never see on the plaintiff's side, you only see on the defense side. We want to make this a real training program as well. So, in addition to learning by doing, which is the main way you learn in a plaintiff's firm, which really is the best way to learn, but we're gonna try to organize it and actually do training sessions. How to take a deposition, how to defend a deposition, how to do oral advocacy, how to write a stellar brief, how to deal with opposing counsel, how to deal with a client, and working together with mentors, helping them through it. So I'm I'm really excited about this. We're taking applications right now, and I'm getting applications from around the country. Very excited about this. Our first inaugural fellowship program, which will begin in September. So I love it for people to reach out who are interested in applying.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

That is great. We will spread the word uh far and wide. Not only does it sound like uh it's a great way to get into plaintiff's practice, but the training parts of it, I love it. And I applaud you, you and your firm for doing that. Um Thank you. All right, well, this has been amazing. Before we let you go, we have a final question we ask all of our guests, and that's the following. If you could go back in time to law school and talk to your former self, what would you tell yourself about the journey?

SPEAKER_02 37:40

I would say just enjoy it, you know. Just just enjoy it. You're doing you're going the right way, you're going down the right road. Don't let anyone take you off course because you are where you need to be. And just and just enjoy it as you're doing it.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Shannon, it's been such a pleasure getting to talk to you. Thanks so much for giving us your time and your wisdom and your insight.

SPEAKER_02 38:02

Thank you so much for having me. I've enjoyed it very much.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

That was my conversation with veteran labor attorney Shannon Lis Reardon, and what an amazing career. I love how it all started with taking a handful of phone calls from waiters in Boston and then flash forward a few years, and she's literally built the case law for tipping practices and gig economy workers' rights. I mean, it's amazing and it's so inspiring, and I think a representative of how plaintiff's law is all about sticking up for little guy. Now, joining me as always is Marissa Lambert from BC Law. Marissa, how's it going?

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Hello, good. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 38:44

I'm hanging in there. I'm hanging in there. But I'm not in law school. What's what's happening in law school now? Like what's what's the thing?

SPEAKER_01 38:51

This week for me was all about clinics, figuring out if I want to take one next year, and if so, which one? We had a clinic fair yesterday that everyone was buzzing around. So, really thinking about that. And separately, I don't think this is talked about a lot, but like a lot of personal stuff in my life is happening at the same time that law school's happening. And so yeah, it's it's been a week of really juggling both, and you don't really have time to juggle both, so you really have to get good at compartmentalizing, and I'm finding I'm I'm much better at that. But that that may be the the biggest skill I leave law school with.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

It's totally true. I mean, like Shannon actually talks about this, but life is busier than law school, and somehow you will, but it seems kind of mind-blowing, but you'll you will balance it all, but it's good to practice now. Well, speaking of Shannon, um, what did you think about the interview? What what what stood out to you?

SPEAKER_01 39:47

I think Shannon's story is a great example of how plaintiff's law is what I'll call, I guess, a green light career. She had no one telling her, no, she couldn't take this case. I know she had some people say about the initial employment cases, hey, these maybe aren't winners, they're not the best to take. And she lost the first two or three, but she kept at it and she had the you know autonomy to keep at it. And I think that really comes out in her, you know, 30-year career in plaintiff's law.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

I love that. Green light career. It's it's such a good way to put it. And the funny thing is, and this struck me, is it it is a green light for her, you know, and she got to take opportunities and and run with them. But then she hits roadblocks, you know, and she could have, I guess, you know, quit or, you know, switched careers or whatever, but she didn't. It's just persistence as well. But there's also this thing like, you know, we've made it to law school and had a successful life thus far, and it's been based upon trusting yourself to, you know, be able to succeed, you know. And I'm just wondering, how much are you gonna rely on, like, hey, I've gotten this far, I've trusted myself this far. Why wouldn't I just continue trusting myself? Is that is that a reservoir of like resilience, do you think, for you?

SPEAKER_01 41:03

I think that in your first year of law school, very unfortunately, that kind of gets taken away from you. Students come into law school with all of these hopes and dreams and all of these great qualities that they have that got them there, how capable they are. But then your world becomes so small. You know, you're you're comparing yourself to other really driven people, but that is in my mind and something I'm trying to remember. Hey, before I was in law school, I I did a lot of things that that got me here, and I can really lean into those when I think about succeeding, you know, moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

There's this great quote. I love quotes, and I I keep them, and I won't get this one exactly right, but it's something like at the end of the day, success is really just persisting where everybody else stopped, you know, like just kept going.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

Yeah, that that's funny that you said that because actually a few minutes ago, I was thinking about one of my favorite quotes, which is a river cuts through rock not because of its strength, but because of its persistence. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's, yeah, plaintiff's law in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

You know, Shannon's such an interesting example of a plaintiff's lawyer because she specializes, so to speak, in, you know, labor law, but then within that specialty, the types of people you can help is it's incredibly broad spectrum. It's anybody who's working for a wage and can have that wage stolen from them, whether they work for FedEx or they're a Skycap or you know, they're a waiter or they dance at a strip club. Isn't that what would what'd you think of that? How that how broad it is in her space?

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Yeah, there are so many ways that you can do great things in this career as exemplified by Shannon, but her example with dancers at strip clubs really moved me in a way because, you know, talk about a community that does not feel seen or represented. You know, who who's fighting for them? I I don't know besides Shannon. And honestly, I don't even know if I thought that was something I could do in plaintiff's law. Um, it's such a powerful thing. And we talk about helping the little guy, but you never think of a scenario like this. You think of someone who was injured on the job or, you know, car crash, something like that. But there are so many types of people and employees that need help. So I really, really love that.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Well, Marissa, I want to talk about something else, which has to do with the rule of law and the attacks on the rule of law that the Trump administration has been leveling. They are countless in number, sadly. One of them, however, is something that students can really take a stand on, and so I wanted to talk about it. About a year ago, a little more, uh, you probably saw that the Trump administration issued several executive orders which basically banned certain law firms from being able to access federal facilities. Those law firms, surprise, were ones that had represented the political opposition, namely the Democratic Party in the past, or sued people that Trump didn't like. Those are wildly unconstitutional executive orders, and they were smacked down immediately. In the district court. And you know, I think the Constitution probably was enough for it. But there was a big question of how many law firms who are not targeted would sign on to Amicus briefs to support these law firms. And the good news is, like, I don't know, well over a thousand, I think a couple thousand law firms did it. The bad news is many, many, many big law firms didn't stand up with their fellow brethren and cistern, if cistern's a word, uh law firms, big law law firms, they didn't stand up, you know, for them. And so Shane Inspector and I wanted to work with the NPLA to give students the opportunity to take a stand on this. And so we drafted and filed an amicus brief in support of uh Sussman Godfrey, but really all the cases got consolidated. And more than a thousand students signed it last year, and we're still trying to spread the word about it because there's still a chance to sign it now, because the cases, of course, are on appeal. Have you got a chance to check out the the amicus brief?

SPEAKER_01 44:53

Yes, I have. I'm so glad that there's a way I can, you know, express how I feel and, you know, quote unquote vote in a way. Um, it's a really powerful tool, and it feels encouraging as a law student to be able to, you know, make an impact in that way. It definitely was an interesting first year seeing this all go down. But this whole time, the silver lining for I think law students is getting to see how these law firms reacted to the order and whether they, you know, stood up. They showed us who they were. And I know of some people who were interested in, you know, XYZ firm, but then they wanted to go to Perkins because they knew that Perkins had stood on its values. So again, a silver lining is we as law students have gotten to see the the soul of these companies. And if you didn't like what you saw, you're, you know, you're heading in in another direction. So I I think they only hurt themselves in that way.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

I gotta give credit for the the final writing of the brief to the client inspector folks, of course, but uh I just gotta read this last paragraph because it's meaningful to me. It goes, left alone, the executive order signals an alarming transformation of our legal system. Rules don't matter, due process doesn't matter. What matters is being in the good graces of those in power. All of this begs a question: if law doesn't matter, why should anyone become a lawyer in the first place? And puts it out there really starkly. But like, if law doesn't matter, why do we have lawyers or law schools or careers like this, right? I mean, it's scary, but it's true.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

Yeah, the the whole institution rises and falls on that. I'm interested to see how this plays out because obviously the Department of Justice uh doesn't seem to be exactly sure about how they feel either, given their flip-flopping.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

Unpack that for us. What happened?

SPEAKER_01 46:50

Right. So, to my understanding, um, on appeal, the government filed a motion to discontinue the you know executive order push. And uh sounds like maybe their telephones won't working or something because apparently Trump didn't know, and you know, he he learned later, and then they immediately filed a motion to withdraw their motion to discontinue. So, you know, my first thought was wow, they must be so unbelievably disorganized, and it's gonna be really hard to trust anything that uh they come out with because there's no reason to believe it's gonna stay that way. Could change in 12 hours as it did.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

Yeah, I mean, just to see the the DOJ flip-flop like that, uh it, you know, coming back to the rule of law. It's funny, it's like the whole case is about the rule of law, and then the way it's being handled is an example of what happens when you don't have an independent uh DOJ uh making its own decisions. Just it blows in the wind, you know. So anyway, um, students can go to National Plaintiffs Law Association.org. You'll see up on top there is uh a link to go to the Amicus brief. Uh you can go there, you can review it, you can sign it. We've got like 1,100 plus folks, but more is better, and the deadline is like immediately. So if you uh are interested in standing up for the rule of law, um please go there, sign it. Well, Marissa, that's wrap week two in the books.

SPEAKER_01 48:16

Yeah, that was great. I'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_00 48:19

Well, that's our show. We'll see you next week. And if you have any suggestions for topics you want to hear covered, or if you have any questions that you want to hear our guests talk about on air, send us an email. The address is Spencer at cause of actionpodcast.com. Cause of action is hosted by me, Spencer Paulkey, joined by Marissa Lambert. Thanks so much to our guests today, Shannon Lis Reardon, Peter Arcuni is our senior producer, and our executive producer is Gabe Riven for Walk Up, Melodia, Kelly, and Schoenberger.